


By The Time You're Awake

by EntameWitchLulu



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Family, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Minor Original Character(s), Miscommunication, While You Were Sleeping AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntameWitchLulu/pseuds/EntameWitchLulu
Summary: Yugo has his life planned out, up to and including who he's going to marry - the problem is, he hasn't exactly introduced himself to her yet. But when his unrequited crush falls onto the train tracks and gets knocked into a coma, a series of hijinks and miscommunication results in his crush's family believing that he's actually her fiance! Can he find a way to untangle himself from the lie before she wakes up, or is the allure of this big happy family - and his unconscious crush's cute sister - going to turn his life on its head?[AU of While You Were Sleeping]
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Rin/Yugo (Yu-Gi-Oh)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 23





	1. The Train Station of Destiny

Yugo had his life planned out. He was going to use this low-paying train token collector job to earn up enough to get a decent mechanic apprenticeship. He was gonna work his way through trade school, start his own repair shop, and then once he was pretty established and had enough, he was going to get married, and then maaaybe they’d have kids but it would really come down to whether or not _she_ wanted kids once they’d talked about it you know and anyways at the very least there’s always just getting a dog — but anyway. That was all later down the line. He actually even already knew _who_ he was going to marry.

The hitch in this plan was, however: he hadn’t exactly introduced himself to her yet.

He was _going_ to. Soon. Definitely soon. One of these days he was going to say something to her when she walked up to his booth at the train station, at exactly 8:45 every morning. One of these days he was gonna do more than just take her tokens and push her ticket out through the slot to her. One of these days he’d at the very least not be so tongue-tied that he couldn’t even say “have a nice day.”

And maybe one of these days she’d actually look up at him through the glass, and maybe she’d smile, and it would be the prettiest smile in the _world_ and he absolutely knew it even though he’d never actually seen it. Like, how could someone so pretty _not_ have the most beautiful smile in the world?

But for now, he just sat in his tiny little glass compartment, shuffling tickets to each passenger as they dropped their bills into his slot, and glanced at her every now and then while she waited for her train (not enough to be _creepy,_ of course), until she got on and disappeared, not to return until after his shift was over. He passed the time after she was gone imagining where she was going, or who she was.

 _Maybe she’s a dancer_ , he thought. _Her legs are really long_.

She was slender, and her skin had a slight sun-tan even in the winter, and her face was still a little rounder making him think she was probably about his age, somewhere around nineteen or twenty. She always had her dark blue hair tied up in a ponytail with a big yellow ribbon — or sometimes a black one. She wore mostly jeans and big sweaters, especially in the winter, and was always carrying a big duffel bag, probably for dance stuff. (He was pretty set on the idea of her being a professional dancer.)

And she had the _prettiest_ dark green eyes, like emeralds. It had really been her eyes that had caught his attention the first time she’d arrived at his till. They’d been so pretty that he’d hesitated just a little too long in handing over her ticket, so shocked. He hoped she didn’t think he was creepy. He wasn’t _stalking_ her or anything!! He just liked to...well, to creepily watch her from his box while she waited for the train and never say anything to her and imagine getting married to her without even knowing her name.

Yugo groaned as he dropped his face into his hands. He really _was_ a creep, wasn’t he? Well, it was okay to look at people, right?? He wasn’t about to do anything like wait at the train station til she came home and ask her out, or follow her home. Just...maybe one day he’d get the courage to say something to her! Maybe ask her out for coffee! And if she said no well — well, he didn’t like to think about rejection, but if she _did_ , he’d do the right thing and stop staring at her!!

He wished his brain would stop running in circles, but there was little else to do today. The station was almost completely empty. It was Christmas morning, so he guessed it made sense. Everyone was at home, off of work, or had already gotten to their intended destinations the night before. He twiddled his thumbs as the clock came closer to 8:45. She wouldn’t be here today...it was _Christmas_. The only reason he was working today was...well, because he was the only person on staff who didn’t have anyone to go home to. She almost definitely had someplace to go home to. (She might even already have a boyfriend, but that made him way too sad to think about so he tucked those thoughts away in the box he put everything else he didn’t like to think about.)

“Argh!!” he said out loud, mussing his hair up and down with his hands. “This sucks!!”

There was no one to hear him shouting, so he didn’t bother trying to hold it in. He was gonna go crazy sitting here doing nothing but drowning in his thoughts! And his crush wasn’t even gonna — 

He almost fell out of his seat when he heard the coins drop into his cup, whirling back around towards the glass with his mouth hanging open.

The girl with the pretty green eyes was on the other side — right on time, like she was every day. He stared for a second more than was necessary before scrambling for the ticket to push through the slot.

“Merry Christmas,” the girl said, taking the ticket from him and waving it at him briefly.

She didn’t exactly _smile_ , but her lips did turn up a little at one edge in a way that made her face seem softer than usual. And he, graceful as he was, gaped at her like a creepy fish as she walked away without waiting for a response.

Once she was waiting at the edge of the tracks, looking down at her phone and not at him, his head slowly, slowly sagged down onto the counter, body slumping completely forward.

“Stupid, stupid Yugo,” he mumbled, knocking his forehead against the counter with each word. “Why didn’t you say it back?? ‘Merry Christmas!!’ It’s not hard, Yugo!! It’s not hard to be a not weird person!!”

The first thing he’d ever heard her say, and he’d totally wasted it! His chance to finally talk to her, and he’d missed it!! Stupid, _stupid_ — 

A yell echoed around the station, and Yugo’s head shot straight back up. He whirled in both directions to locate the sound — then saw her. The green-eyed girl, her face wrinkled with anger as she fought to yank her duffel bag back from the masked guy trying to grab it from her. The pair of them wrestled with it like some kind of tug-of-war game. 

Yugo gaped for a half-second before he realized what was happening. S-she was getting mugged!!

“Hey!!” he shouted, banging his fist against the glass to get their attention. He fumbled for his panic button, trying to smack it while he kept an eye on what was happening. “Hey!! Leave her alone!!”

The sound of his banging startled the would-be thief. They let go of the bag in a rush, and bolted away.

Unfortunately, as soon as they let go, the green-eyed girl lost the force pulling her one way, and her eyes widened as she tumbled straight backwards — onto the tracks.

Yugo leaped all the way up, trying to see her where she’d fallen. He couldn’t breathe, his heart had stuffed itself into his head and his whole brain pulsed. Oh shit, oh shit, the train was gonna be here soon, in just a couple of minutes —

He fumbled to unlock himself from his box, tumbling out onto his knees on the concrete and tearing the knees of his pants. He scrambled back up and bolted to the edge of the tracks. He could _see_ the train coming, close, too close already, how much time did he have??

The girl was down there! She — oh _no_ she wasn’t moving, she wasn’t _moving_!! Her head laid against one of the tracks, clearly having knocked herself out when she fell. Yugo leaped down into the little pit. Where was the train?

The train horn sounded, and his eyes bulged as he looked up — it was close enough that he could _see_ it, it was gonna hit them — 

His hands were so sweaty and he couldn’t grab hold of her, she was a little heavier than he’d expected oh no oh no oh no — 

With a cry, he yanked on both her arms at once, slingshotting her into his own arms. It yanked the both of them back, and then he landed on top of her on the side of the tracks, lowering his whole body over her and pressing them as close to the ground as possible.

The heat and rush of wind that crashed over the top of them made him want to scream, but he flattened as much as he could and tried not to breathe.

His ears rang so long that he didn’t realize the train had stopped a while ago. He tried to breathe, to remember what it felt like to fill his lungs with air. His whole body shook as though it might come apart at the joints. The heat of the train, still inches over them, settled as the machine groaned against the tracks.

 _Oh_ , he thought dizzily. _Christmas miracle._

* * *

Yugo stumbled out of the ambulance after the gurney, while the paramedics rushed the girl into the emergency room. One of them tried to keep hold of Yugo, scolding him because _I haven’t finished checking you over yet,_ but Yugo’s eyes were still on her — was she going to be okay?? She must have hit her head pretty hard to be knocked out. Wasn’t that like, really bad? What if she was dead?

“Sir, if I could just get you to at least sit down,” the paramedic holding his arm said with far more patience than she actually had. “Let’s get you checked over, all right?”

The paramedic led him into the already rather crowded emergency room and into a bubble of sound, of crying babies and shushing mothers and children on handheld video games without headphones and someone yelling onto a phone while others simply sat and stared at nothing. Yugo tried to push ahead towards the girl’s gurney, which was met by a trio of nurses who all seemed to rapidly exchange information before pushing her towards another door.

“Is she going to be all right? Is she okay? Can I go see her?”

“Only family members are allowed to visit inpatients. You did an excellent thing taking care of her and making sure she could get here, and I’m sure she’s going to be all right. Now will you please let me do my job?”

Yugo allowed her to set him down into a chair near the reception desk, while some other doctors and nurses hurried past him, and doors opened and names were called. The paramedic began to check his pulse while he looked mournfully after the green-eyed girl on the gurney as she disappeared through a door near the desk, only a few feet away from him. Was she going to be okay? What if she never opened her eyes again?

“I was gonna marry that girl,” he mumbled, half to himself — perhaps still a bit dizzy from the shock of having an entire train come inches from bowling him over.

As though he’d heard, the receptionist glanced up at him briefly, eyes flickering to the girl on the gurney, before then turning his attention to the next person at the desk. Yugo meekly sat where he was while the paramedic finished making sure he hadn’t taken any injuries himself while saving the green-eyed girl from getting run over by a train.

Fifteen minutes later, he had a clean bill of health, and the paramedic disappeared to probably go off on another emergency. Yugo sat in the seat for a moment longer, the sounds of the emergency room tumbling over him without actually hearing it. 

_Maybe if I had just said something back to her_ , he thought. _If I’d said Merry Christmas back. Or asked her name. Or gotten her into a conversation. Then maybe no one would have tried to mug her, or at the very least she wouldn’t have been near the tracks when it happened and I could have gotten over there faster and she wouldn’t_ die — 

“Sir?”

Yugo didn’t really hear it, the sound melting into the rest of the white noise of the room around him. His mind kept tumbling over what ifs, if only he’d’ves, and everything in between.

It wasn’t until he felt the slight tap on his hand that he startled, realizing that someone was talking to _him_ . He stirred with a big jump, almost tumbling out of his chair. It was a nurse, a smallish girl with big glasses and her short purple hair tucked up into her hat. She clutched a clipboard to her chest, but he could still see her little name tag that read _Sasayama Sayaka_.

“Oh, h-huh? Sorry, am I in the way or something?” Yugo asked, suddenly realizing that he was taking up a chair in the emergency room when he had no reason to be here.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Sayaka said, waving her hand. “The receptionist just let me know that you came in with Miss Hiragi Selena, is that correct?”

“Huh?” Yugo said, the name not ringing any bells. “I came in with — she was almost in a train accident, I mean —”

“That’s right! She’s very lucky you were with her, ” Sayaka said, smiling. “She’s expected to make a full recovery, though she’s still unconscious. Her family’s been called, but would you like to keep her company until then? It would be good for her.”

Yugo stared at her a moment, his mouth gaping. Huh? Hadn’t...hadn’t someone just told him that only family members could visit inpatients? Oh, but maybe it was okay, because he’d been the one to try to help, so the nurse was being nice by trying to help him feel better about whether he’d actually done any good? Or maybe it was some doctor-y thing, that it was good for unconscious people to have people around them and talking to them while they were out cold, so it would be good for him to do that until her family could get here?

“O-oh, thank you,” he said. “I — yeah, I definitely want to make sure she’s okay!”

Sayaka smiled brightly, straightening up.

“Right this way, she’ll be in room 104 for now. She certainly has a concussion, but with proper monitoring, she should wake up soon with little other side-effects.”

Yugo didn’t really hear her. His palms felt really sweaty and he rubbed them against his pants as they slipped into a hallway and moved around other gurneys and hurrying doctors. His mouth felt super dry. Once again, the thoughts that he should have done more surfaced, that if only he hadn’t been so nervous, she wouldn’t have had to get in this mess in the first place! If only he’d talked to her before, and they’d even maybe been friends, she could have hung out near his booth til the train came and this wouldn’t have happened — 

Sayaka opened up the door to the room for him, and held it open.

“Again, we’ve called her family, and they said they would be here soon,” she said. “I’ll bring them in when they get here, but you keep an eye on her, won’t you? Don’t hesitate to get a doctor if anything seems to be wrong.”

“T-thanks,” said Yugo, almost tripping over his own feet as he let himself through the open door.

There she was, then, and he forgot about anything else. His heart panged to see her all laid out as though she were just asleep. Her usual hair tie had been undone, and her hair was laid out around her head on the pillow. 

Yugo didn’t know too much about concussions, or medical stuff in general, so he wasn’t really sure if it was okay for her to still be out like a light or if that meant something was wrong. But her chest was rising and falling, so she was clearly still alive, and that made his legs feel like jelly from relief.

After hovering awkwardly in the room for a few moments, he finally walked over to the chair near the bed and settled himself into it. There wasn’t a clock in this room, but he still felt like he could hear something ticking off the seconds — other than that, though, everything was so quiet. He dug his hands into his knees. He rocked side to side slightly. He felt like an intruder.

“I’m sorry,” tumbled out of his lips, his shoulders hunching around his ears. “I’m really sorry. If I had just said something to you...maybe this wouldn’t have happened. I...please wake up.”

 _Her name is Selena_ , he thought, twisting the name around in his mind. He remembered the nurse saying that. Hiragi Selena. It was such a pretty name. He wished, though, that she could have told it to him herself.

“I should have introduced myself,” he said. “I’m Yugo. Just Yugo. Well, no, not just Yugo, but uh, I never knew my mom or dad, so calling myself Kobayashi Yugo doesn’t feel right. So it’s just Yugo. Um.”

He twiddled his thumbs over each other, struggling for something to say. She didn’t even stir. If it weren’t for her chest rising and falling, he might have thought she were dead. But he should keep talking to her, right? That would be good. Maybe she would wake up. And then he could repeat all of this over again to her. Maybe it would be easier to talk to her awake once he’d practiced while she was asleep.

“I-I hope this isn’t creepy for me to say, but I’ve actually had a little bit of a crush on you for a really long time,” he said, his cheeks getting hot. “And I was thinking maybe...once you’re better, obviously, but I’d really like to get to know you, so maybe we could go out...when you’re awake...gah! What am I doing, asking out someone who’s asleep...”

He ruffled his fingers through his hair with an irritable energy. What could he really do? He was feeling more and more awkward and awful by the second. This really was all his fault...

Before he could say anything else, however, the door creaked open. Yugo sat straight up, looking for the nurse, or for Hiragi’s mysterious family...

No one even looked at him. A woman about his age rocketed in first, practically careening against the bed.

“Selena!!” she cried, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Selena, you big stupid — you’d better wake up!”

A flurry of other voices began to tumble over each other like water over stones, as more and more people all flooded into the room and around Hiragi’s bed. Yugo was almost pushed completely over by one of the bodies almost knocking into him.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s really knocked out??”

“What did the doctor say?”

“I would have heard if you all would have been talking all at once!”

“Selena, you’re going to wake up, or you’re going to be in trouble!”

“This is not how I wanted to hear from you after three years, young lady —”

“Hey, don’t crowd her! Everybody calm down or we’re going to get kicked out!”

Yugo leaped out of the chair and pressed himself back against the wall as the crowd of people somehow all managed to flood in. He could barely recognize one face from another, dizzy with the sudden commotion. He wondered if maybe he should leave...

Just as he was thinking so, one of the faces turned towards him — a sharp, angular face with even sharper eyes and dark bangs swooped over them, a man who was taller _and_ broader than Yugo and whose eyes narrowed suspiciously when they laid on Yugo.

“Hang on,” he said. “Who are _you_?”

Yugo froze, his mouth hanging open. Everyone went dead silent, and suddenly all eyes were on him. Oh nooooo. Where were his words? Why were they all gone so quickly?

It felt like the silence dragged on for hours, but it was only less than a few seconds. The nurse, Sayaka, leaned in near the door with a bright smile on her face.

“Oh, this is Hiragi-san’s fiance! He was the one to pull her from the tracks,” she said, and then a faint confusion spread over her face, flickering her eyes from the family and then to Yugo. “Oh, I’m sorry. Had you not told them yet?”

Yugo’s brain clunked a few times like rusty gears. He tried, for a moment, to grasp at the threads of the conversation that had led to this. He was...he was _what_??

Before he could say another word, one of the family members pulled out of the group — she was a tall woman, with bright blond hair pulled back in a fluffy ponytail. Her sharp green eyes took in Yugo in a quick appraisal, as though she could see right through him. As though she knew it was a lie and was about to beat him up for lying while her...daughter or niece or something was on her deathbed — 

And then her arms were around him, and he was being squeezed in the tightest hug he had ever felt in his life.

“Thank you,” she breathed into his hair. “You brought our little girl home to us.”

Yugo really should have felt a little more upset about the situation — he should have been trying to explain, that it was a misunderstanding, that he wasn’t engaged to her, that he...

But the hug fried the last of his already short-circuited brain. Unbidden tears flooded to his eyes, and he simply hung there, in the hug of a woman he didn’t know, in the middle of a situation he didn’t know how to untangle, and he didn’t get out a single word.


	2. Christmas

“All right, all right, that’s enough commotion — that’s enough commotion!! You can all take this down to the lobby, you’re going to disturb the patients!”

Yugo sniffled, quickly trying to wipe at his snotty nose with his sleeve. He couldn’t remember when he had started crying, but it had turned into ugly tears very fast. The woman who had hugged him kept her arm around his shoulder as they were bustled out of the room by the doctor.

“Here,” said a young woman with a face a lot like Selena’s. “Blow.”

She handed him a handkerchief, and he sniffled out an incoherent thank you before taking it and blowing his nose into it. The crowd, at which he found himself at the head of with the blond woman, had to take three trips down the elevator to get everyone down into the waiting room. It was a different one than the one he’d started out in, mostly empty — well, not anymore, not with this massive family all piling into it. He could hardly comprehend so many people. 

Yugo found himself guided over to one of the empty armchairs, and the woman sat him firmly down while he blew his nose again. Chatter billowed over his head once again, but he couldn’t really comprehend it. An older man with reddish-orange hair, and a woman with short cropped red hair, were both sobbing and clinging to each other, bawling while another older woman with darker red hair rolled her eyes, patting the first woman’s shoulder. The woman with the magenta hair, who had given Yugo the handkerchief, talked very quickly to another older man with bushy orange hair and yellow tattoos all over his face.

“So,” came a tight, irritable voice from over his head. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

The voice came from the tall, dark-haired man with the sharp bangs, and even sharper hazel-yellow eyes. Yugo felt like crumpling under that angry looking gaze, but before he could say anything, a tall, older woman with dark auburn hair tutted her tongue at the dark-haired man and pushed him back.

“Don’t be rude, Shun,” she said. “We’re all in a lot of shock — and I’m sure he’s even more so!”

The woman smiled comfortingly at Yugo, and Yugo tentatively smiled back. She had a nice sort of face, her dark hair twisted into a fancy braid atop the rest of her loose hair. She was dressed real nice, in a soft looking dark green dress that fell just above her knees — actually, everyone here was kinda dressed up, like they’d just been to some nice event. It made him feel a little shabby in comparison, with his reflective vest over the top of his ratty old flannel.

The auburn haired woman held a hand out to Yugo.

“I’m Ray,” she said. “Selena’s older sister. And this sourpuss is my younger brother, Shun.”

Shun grunted at him, nose wrinkling, and he didn’t offer his hand for a handshake.

“We probably overwhelmed you, huh?” Ray said with a soft laugh. “We get that a lot — I  _ told _ everyone that it would be a pain for so many of us to come...”

“We don’t hear from Selena for months, and then find out she’s in the hospital while we’re trying to celebrate Christmas?? Of course we’re all gonna come!” said the blond woman, shaking her fist at the air.

Ray gave her an exasperated look. 

“You, especially, aunt Yoko,” she said. “Papa couldn’t hear a  _ thing _ the doctor was saying with you yelling!”

“Doctors are all the same. You gotta put some of the fear of god in them or they dance around the subject,” Yoko said, shrugging.

Yugo felt like his head was spinning so badly that he might throw up. He groaned, leaning forward.

“Oh, my,” a soft voice said, a hand laying against his shoulder. “Are you feeling all right? We heard you got our sister off the tracks...”

He looked up, and his mouth briefly hung open as he for a second thought he was looking at Selena. But no, her eyes were a deep magenta, and her hair was much longer, dark and twisted in a long braid down her back. She had a softer sort of look to her than Selena, too, almost motherly as she frowned with concern at him.

“I’m...I’m okay,” he squeaked. “Actually, um...the thing is...”

Oh, geez, but how could even  _ begin _ to tell them the truth now!! Where did he start?

“I’m Ruri,” the dark-haired girl said with a sweet smile. He wondered for a moment if Selena looked like that when she smiled, and it made him blush. “Are you sure you’re all right? You didn’t get hurt rescuing her, did you?”

“N-no, not really, I mean, uh, they gave me the all-clear at least, so —”

It was then that the bawling woman finally leaped from her chair and practically flung herself at Yugo, collapsing with her arms thrown around him. For a second, he thought she was attacking him, and he froze. Then he realized she was babbling out thank you thank you thank you over and over again, and then  _ he _ was crying again as he awkwardly put his arms back around her and patted her back.

“Mom,” Ray groaned. “She’s all  _ right _ .”

“It would take way more than this to knock Selena off,” said the magenta-haired girl, shaking her head.

“Manato, w-we’d better l-let the poor boy breathe,” said the bawling man, who was still crying even as he tugged against the woman’s shoulder.

Finally, she was convinced to let Yugo go, though she was still crying and mumbling as she leaned against the man who must be her husband. Yugo’s head kept spinning.

“Let me try and untangle a few things for you, I know we’re a handful,” Ray said, leaning with her hand on the arm of the chair next to him and beginning to point out family members, pointing to Ruri and the magenta-haired girl first. “You already met Ruri, and that’s Yuzu, mine and Selena’s sisters. They’re the same age as Selena.”

“T-triplets?” Yugo mumbled, eyes widening slightly.

“Close,” Yuzu said, smiling. “Quadruplets.”

“Rin’s flight was delayed, so she wasn’t able to come in yet,” said Ruri. “I hope we can get a hold of her and let her know what happened...”

She frowned, wringing her hands, and then went for her phone.

“Then you also met our sourpuss brother, Shun,” Ray said, and Shun glowered at her. “The lady that almost suffocated you is our mom, Hiiragi Manato, and that’s our dad, Hiiragi Shuzo.”

The other red-haired woman leaned forward, still rubbing Manato’s shoulder with one hand as she shot Yugo a small smile.

“Izayoi Aki,” she said, with a bob of her head. “I’m Selena’s aunt.”

The bushy-haired man with the yellow tattoos on his face gave Yugo a quick two fingered salute when Yuzu nudged him.

“Name’s Crow. One of Selena’s uncles. Aki and Manato are my sisters,” he said by way of explanation.

“And that’s Yoko,” Ray said, pointing to the blond woman from before. “She lives next door. I don’t know why she’s here.”

“Selena’s my little girl as much as she is the rest of yours!” Yoko said. “Practically half-raised you kids, you were all over at my house so often.”

“It was hard enough convincing Jack and Shinji not to come, so we decided to cut our losses by not arguing with her,” Ray whispered conspiratorially to Yugo, and he let out a choked giggle in spite of himself.

There was just something so...at-ease with this family, even though a lot of them were still in hysterics about Selena. The nice smiles they all had for him, how much  _ themselves _ they all seemed to be, the fact that even though there were so many of them and he ought to feel overwhelmed, he actually felt kind of at home already...

He tried once again to get the words out, to tell them the truth, but they stuck in his throat, and he felt tears begin to spill down his cheeks again.

Ray rubbed his shoulder with the kind of light, gentle touch he would expect to get from a big sister, and he felt for just a second like she  _ was _ his big sister, and he was so overwhelmed by the feeling that it made him cry a little more.

“I-I’m sorryyy,” he said between sobs. “I don’t know why I can’t — stop —”

“You’ve had a rough day, kid,” said Crow. “Let it out.”

“This still doesn’t make any sense,” Shun said, dropping his arms to his sides, and Yugo flinched. “We don’t even know who he is!! Selena never told us shit about this!”

“Selena hasn’t talked to any of us for months,” Ray pointed out.

“But getting  _ engaged _ ?” Shun said. “And to this guy?”

He gestured to all of Yugo, which Yugo thought would probably have offended him if he hadn’t been in hysterics at the moment.

“What are you trying to say?” Yuzu said, glaring at him.

“He doesn’t really seem Selena’s  _ type _ ,” Shun said, though he looked down rather than meet Yuzu’s eyes. 

Yuzu raised both her eyebrows at him, folding her arms. Then she rolled her eyes, and flopped into one of the empty seats. For a long time, no one talked, and Yugo tried very hard to get his tears back under control. This was so stupid of him. He needed to tell them the truth! But the longer he waited, the harder it seemed to get. The farther away the words got from him, until they seemed impossible to reach.

Most everyone drifted to seats, though Shun and Crow remained shifting about on their feet. Yuzu pulled out her phone and began to type at a blinding speed.

“O-oh,” Manato said then, dabbing at her eyes. “I...I never even asked your name. I’m so sorry, I’m really — frazzled.”

Her eyes were on Yugo when she spoke, but it still took Yugo half a second to register that she was talking to him. He straighted his back like a shot, hands pressed against his knees.

“I-I’m Yugo! Um — Kobayashi Yugo, that’s my name, it’s good — it’s good to meet you!” 

He quickly bowed from his sitting position and almost knocked his head against his knees.

“It’s so good to meet you, Yugo,” Manato said, smiling with still-red eyes, and then blowing her nose again. “Oh, goodness, I’m so sorry. I’m afraid this has all gotten me back into my anxious self again.”

Shuzo wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her.

“When did you and Selena meet?” Shuzo asked, and for a second, Yugo was positive he was testing him, that he was trying to get Yugo to say that it had all been a lie and expose him, and he froze up.

Then he noticed just how open and kind Shuzo’s face face, how he actually looked rather eager to hear the answer, and Yugo froze again in the wake of the next lie that might come out of him, that might break that happy face. And Manato’s tears might get worse if he told the truth now, and what if everyone got so upset again and he was the person at fault?

“Uh...not...not that long ago, actually,” he said. “J-just a few months.”

“Moving quickly, huh?” Shun said under his breath, but he grunted when Ruri pinched his arm and twisted.

“When did you know?” Ray asked, with that sweet, kind smile.

“Huh?”

“When did you know you were going to get married to Selena?” Yuzu asked, filling in Ray’s question.

“Oh, I...”

Were they all testing him? Did they all already know that it was all a bad misunderstanding? Were they trying to get him to tell the truth? But they were all staring at him with such kind eyes, such trusting eyes, and they had all been so upset about Selena that he couldn’t bear to make it any worse for them by trying to explain everything.

“Well, I, uh...see, we met when...I work at a train token station, and she came through with her tokens, and well, our eyes met...”

He trailed off for a moment, because this wasn’t a lie, it was the truth — the first day he had met Hiiragi Selena and fallen in love with her. He’d almost blurted out then and there how beautiful her eyes were, but he’d managed to hold it in. Her eyes had lingered on his a moment longer than he thought was usual, her hand not leaving the counter for a second, and he wasn’t sure if it was because she could tell he was staring, or if maybe, just maybe, she’d been interested in him too just for a moment.

“She had a sort of...sad look in her eyes,” he said, looking down at his knees. “But like, not so that you could see it. And it made me wonder if she wanted someone to talk to, maybe.”

He stopped talking then, before he started to babble and add any fake bits to his story that he would have to try to remember later. Because that was all that had really happened. After that, he’d watched her from afar every day, working up the nerve to introduce himself, to say anything to her at all.

But this family believed that he  _ had _ said something to her, and that now they were  _ engaged _ . He wasn’t sure how to build up a convincing enough story about that that he could remember — and he didn’t  _ want _ to lie.

Yuzu and Ruri exchanged smiles with each other, and then Yuzu leaned forward with a mischievous sort of grin, leaning her chin on her knuckles and her elbows on her knees.

“Selena is one lucky girl, I think,” she said.

Yugo felt his stomach drop out, and he dropped his eyes to his knees before anyone could see the blush that spread over his cheeks.

“We’re really glad to meet you, Yugo-san,” Ruri said with a smile. “I so wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

“One way or another, you’re here now, kid,” Yoko said.

“Welcome to the circus,” said Ray, grinning as she clapped Yugo’s shoulder.

She said it with such genuine warmth, such a bright, sparkling smile, and the others were all smiling at him too, like he was  _ supposed _ to be there, like they were  _ happy _ he was there even in the midst of their family still being on a hospital bed in a coma. It made tears well back up to his eyes, so overwhelmed by the feeling, and he ducked his head, hiding behind his bangs.

No one asked him any more questions, and he didn’t say anything more. He was almost afraid to break the silence, as though one false word might shatter the sudden sense of calm, and bring everything crashing down on him.

* * *

It was late by the time Ray finally convinced everyone that it was time to go home. Manato and Shuzo wanted to stay overnight, but Ray scolded them and told them that they needed sleep, and that “the people at home” were going to want some relief from the kids. Yugo couldn’t even begin to imagine that this wasn’t the whole family, but from what little he’d gleaned from Yuzu and Ruri, who had begun striking up small conversation with him and others to fill in the silence, as well as half of a few harried phone calls from some of the family to the others who hadn’t come in, this was only about  _ half _ the family. His head spun just thinking about it — and his chest hurt, a little, too, wondering what it might feel like to have such a huge family, to never be alone and to always have at least one person in reach whenever you needed someone. When was the last time Yugo had had...well,  _ anyone _ to talk to?

Finally, though, most of the family was convinced to head out.

“Do you need a ride, or anything?” Ray asked Yugo as she shooed her parents through the door.

“Oh, no, it’s okay, my apartment’s real close,” Yugo said. “But — thanks.”

Ray smiled at him, reaching out and squeezing his hand.

“Now don’t you stay too late, either,” she said. “It’s good of you to stick around for her, but I’m sure she wants you to get some sleep.”

“Uh, right, yeah, thank you.”

Yugo couldn’t think of somewhere he’d rather be  _ less _ than his apartment, but he nodded and shook Ray’s hand, waving as she followed her parents through the door. His hand kind of hurt by now, honestly, from all of the hand shaking and squeezing that had gone on for the evening. 

A strange warmth hung around him, like a fuzzy blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He put a hand to his chest, feeling at his heartbeat, and was almost surprised to find how slow and steady it was. He felt...well, he wasn’t sure he could really put a word to what he was feeling right now. It wasn’t something he remembered feeling much before, or really at all. It was like the warmth of that big, chaotic, but still open and loving family was still wrapped around, him even if they were gone.

The warmth faded, however, as the guilt began to rise its head in his chest again, his heartrate picking up again. Oh, geez...what could he do? He was still lying to them, about  _ everything _ , and he didn’t know what to do. Could he tell them the truth now? He had to, right? He could explain that the confusion of the day just made it impossible for him to really get it all untangled. Maybe he could pretend he  _ had _ had a little bit of a concussion and that he’d been disoriented and just gone along with it.

He wrung his hands and groaned, then. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Who was he kidding? He didn’t know what he could say or do or how to make this right. No matter what, he’d just be sending that family into disarray again, and...and well, he’d probably never see them again. It surprised him how much that bothered him. He’d only just met them, after all. But thinking about making them all sad by telling them the truth...it made him feel gross.

He sighed again, dropping his hands from his face. Well, maybe he wouldn’t see them again. If he wasn’t really Selena’s fiance, he couldn’t exactly keep coming to the hospital to check on her. And he didn’t have much other reason to see them, after all, it seemed like Selena was kind of apart from them, enough that none of them seemed too surprised that she hadn’t told them about something as important as getting engaged — though he couldn’t begin to imagine why she’d want to leave a family so warm and loving.

There was nothing else for it. Somehow, he was going to have to fix this. But not tonight. He licked his dry lips, and his tired thoughts told him he ought to go home and sleep. But the last thing he wanted to see was his old, bare apartment, with the carpet stains and the water damaged ceiling.

So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when he found his feet had brought him back upstairs to Selena’s hospital room.

The monitor beeped softly, a reminder that she was all right, just...asleep. Yugo hovered over her for a moment, feeling strange, wringing his hands, wondering if he had any right to be here. Then he sagged, sinking into the chair beside the bed and leaning his face onto his palm.

“This is all my fault,” he mumbled. “All of it. If I had just talked to you, you wouldn’t have fallen in the first place...and if I could just  _ say _ things right, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened...”

He closed his eyes, listening to the heart monitor beep, beep, beep.

“So...I guess we’re engaged now?” he said, trying to sound like he was joking. “I hope you’re not mad. I didn’t mean that to...I mean, I didn’t tell them I was, but things just...”

He slumped, leaning his elbows on his knees and staring out into the dim room.

“You’re real lucky, you know that?” he said. “You have so many people in your life...so many people came to see you when you were in trouble. And there were so many that not even all of them could come! I...”

He bit his lip, feeling the tears start.

“I wonder who would...if it was me in the bed there instead, I wonder if anyone would come to see me.”

Beep, beep, beep, beep. Selena’s eyes didn’t even flutter, though her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. The breath mask over her mouth fogged with each exhale. Talking to her while she was asleep was so easy. But when he was faced with awake, real people, he lost all of his words, and forgot what he wanted to say.

He rubbed at his teary eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t mean to just...push my way into your family. I really always wanted to talk to you, for real. I’m sorry this is how it all turned out.”

He swallowed through a thick throat, and coughed to clear it.

“But I’ll...I’ll do something and fix it. I’ll get it...I’ll get it straightened out. And then I’ll leave you and your family alone, okay? I’m sorry for getting us fake-engaged by accident. But um....thanks, I guess, too. For...”

He trailed off, afraid to speak the words aloud, and give them more weight than his thoughts.

“For...letting me pretend to be a part of things for a little bit,” he said, smiling and wiping his tears off. “It felt kinda nice.”

He sat there a little while longer, listening to the silence punctuated by her beeping heartbeat. She didn’t even stir, not even a little. He didn’t think she would. He hoped, though, that she’d wake up someday, and give her the chance to go back to her family. He didn’t know why she’d left them in the first place, but maybe...maybe that’s why she’d seemed sad.

He sniffled and wiped his nose on the back of his hand, then stood up. He thought about whether he should say good bye, or good night, but...well, she was asleep. She couldn’t hear him.

He was still rubbing at his eyes as he pushed back out into the hallway, so he didn’t immediately notice the man coming towards the door, and almost ran into him.

“Oh, oops, I’m so sorry!” he babbled, as a hand grabbed his shoulder and righted him.

“No worries, kid,” and Yugo looked up with surprise to see Crow standing over him. “Sorry to surprise you. Thought you might have gone up here when you weren’t in the lounge anymore.”

Yugo’s eyes bulged a moment. Did...had Crow heard anything he’d said out loud to Selena? Was he about to confront him about it? Why was Crow looking for him in the first place?

“I, uh,” Yugo stammered, trying to see if he could read Crow’s expression, mind-read what he was thinking. “What did you need?”

But Crow just smiled, a strange, distant sort of look in his eyes, and clapped Yugo’s shoulder lightly before letting go of him.

“Well, almost slipped all our minds in all the commotion but...truth was, we’d all been gathered up for Christmas, and what with all this,” he said, waving his hand at the hospital in general, “no one’s quite in the festive mood today. So were gonna reschedule to sometime next week.”

“Oh, uh, okay?” Yugo said, wondering why Crow was telling him this.

Yugo really didn’t get the look in Crow’s eye when he met Yugo’s gaze — it was sort of...he didn’t know. Something sort of soft, he thought.

“So,” he said, patiently, “we were hoping you’d want to come by and join us.”

Yugo stared at him, his mouth hanging slightly open. It took what felt like minutes for the words to fully register in his head. Was he...was he inviting Yugo to spend Christmas with the family?

Alarm bells briefly went off in Yugo’s head — right after he’d decided he would avoid contact with them! He definitely couldn’t spend all of Christmas with them, and then — even if he did, when would he get the chance to tell them the truth??

And then at the same time, a bone-deep, aching longing spread through him, so deep that it almost made him want to fall over. An aching loneliness, the pit in his stomach he always pretended wasn’t there, rose up like a wave inside him. Christmas with  _ people _ ? With this big, cheerful family that seemed to  _ like _ him? To want to get to know him?

It would all be a lie, his mind reminded himself. It was going to be one big lie. He couldn’t say yes. He absolutely could not say yes. He had to come up with an excuse.

“S-sure,” was what he blurted out instead. “I — yeah, I’d love to. T-thank you!”

Crow smiled again, with that strange, soft-but-distant look in his eyes. He clapped Yugo’s shoulder again and nodded.

“Great,” he said. “You got a cell phone? Drop me your number and I’ll send you the details.”

And that was how Yugo found himself plugging his number into Crow’s cell phone, waving at him as he walked back down the hallway, and realizing that once again, his big, stupid mouth had pulled himself even  _ deeper _ into the mess.


	3. Christmas, Take Two (Part 1)

Yugo checked the address on his phone, looked up at the house, checked the address again, look up at the house again. The house numbers matched both on his phone and on the house in front of him, and all the lights on inside meant it had to be the place, but Yugo had it in his head all of a sudden that he might be wrong, that he might walk into the wrong house and make a fool of himself, that somehow maybe he was hallucinating and only  _ thought _ he saw the right house number but it could very well actually be the wrong house, and —

Okay, he was spiraling. He took a deep, steadying breath, clutching tighter to the nice vase full of poinsettias he had bought to bring as a house gift. He was starting to regret that, too. Were flowers weird? It was Christmas after all, but maybe he should have brought something edible? He should have asked. Why didn’t he ask? Why was he  _ here _ ?

Yugo almost turned around on the sidewalk right then and walked back to the train station where he’d come from, but his feet were rooted to the spot, and his eyes fixed on the big house.

It was...a sight, honestly. It looked like three different houses that had been pasted together — one of which had a built in rock climbing wall along the front, and another of which was just a sideways cylinder with big windows plopped on top. Was that a  _ slide _ wrapped around the front? If he didn’t know any better, he’d think it was a waterpark. It was all decked out for Christmas, too: there were lights on  _ everything _ , blinking and flashing in colorful designs, big white and gold ornaments that glowed hanging along the top edges, and a huge Christmas tree standing outside near the doors. There was no way this was an actual house, was there? He looked around, and saw perfectly normal looking houses on either side of it, then back up at the building.

“Oh, hey! You made it after all.”

Yugo jumped almost a foot into the air. His heel caught on a patch of ice when he landed, and his whole leg shot out, sending him toppling back towards the concrete.

He didn’t make it there, though, as a hand grabbed his elbow and hoisted him back up to his feet as easily as though he were made of cotton. Face burning, hoping that it was dark enough that his rescuer wouldn’t notice, he turned to see who it was that had startled him.

“Whoa! Careful there,” Crow laughed, releasing Yugo’s elbow. “Wouldn’t want to put a second person in the hospital this Christmas, huh?”

“D-definitely not!!” Yugo said, mostly just glad he hadn’t dropped the pot of poinsettias. The ceramic would have shattered and the poor plants would have been spilled all over the place in the cold.

Crow smiled. He nodded his head towards the decked out building.

“Everyone should be inside by now. But hey, take a seat with me for a second, will ya?”

Yugo’s chest automatically squeezed, and for a minute he felt like he’d left his body. This was it. He was found out. Crow was about to tell him that he’d heard everything that night and that he was a terrible person and he needed to leave immediately or he’d call the police on him.

But he numbly followed Crow over to the steps of the big, wild house, and perched at the very end with the pot balanced on his knee, while Crow sighed and plopped next to him. Crow’s hand reached up to his vest pocket, almost automatically, and then he glanced at it and blinked. A smile cracked over his lips again.

“You know, I quit smoking twenty years ago, and I still go looking for ‘em sometimes,” he said. “You smoke?”

“No, I don’t,” said Yugo.

“Good,” said Crow, clapping his shoulder. “Don’t start. It ruins everything.”

He leaned back on his hands, breath ghosting from his mouth as he tilted his head back to look up towards the dark, clear sky. Yugo wondered what Crow had to say to him.

“Ya know, this family,” he said, “it’s been through a lot.”

Yugo blinked, glancing at him. He wasn’t sure what to say in response, but Crow thankfully kept talking.

“I remember a lot that I’m real lucky to be a part of it,” he said. “Despite all of the fuck ups I’ve put it through myself in the past.”

His eyes slid over to Yugo, and for a second, Yugo felt like they were cutting into him.

“I’d do pretty much anything to make sure nobody ever hurt this family,” he said.

Yugo remembered Ray’s kind smile, and Ruri’s comforting hand on his shoulder, and Manato and Shuzo giving him such warm, welcoming hugs and gratitude, Yoko’s spine crushing hug, and the whole... _ warm _ feeling of all of them all around him, acting like he was one of them.

“I would too,” he blurted before he thought about it, coming out of some instinctive place deep within him.

Crow held his gaze for just a hair longer. Then the harsh edge disappeared from him, so quickly that Yugo wondered if he’d imagined it. He clapped Yugo’s shoulder again, lighter this time.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said.

The door cracked open behind them, and a beam of light spilled over the concrete. When Yugo turned, Manato was in the doorway, and her whole face lit up.

“ _ There _ you are, Crow!” she said. “And oh my goodness, Yugo-kun! You made it!”

Yugo jumped up to his feet as Manato scurried outside, grabbing him in an awkward hug around the potted plant still between them.

“I, uh, Merry Christmas!” he said when she stepped back, pushing the plant towards her.

“Oh, my! How beautiful!” she said, eyes sparkling as she took the pot. “That will look  _ lovely _ in the dining room. Now come in, come in, you too! It’s cold out here!”

She ushered the pair of them inside, Crow sending her a good-natured eye roll and a mutter about how it wasn’t  _ that _ cold, and Manato smacked his shoulder lightly, scolding him for once again wearing a sleeveless vest in the middle of winter.

The building was as big and chaotic on the inside as it was on the outside. Immediately upon entering, there were three ways to go — one was closed off, straight ahead was a long hallway, and to the left was a wide open set of double doors leading into a dazzling array of lights, laughter, and music.

Man, this place was big!. Was this someone’s  _ house _ ? It looked kinda like a ballroom, but a ballroom that had a bunch of mismatched couches and armchairs all along the walls, in between the big curtained windows which were decked out with even more Christmas lights, tinsel, and fake pine garland. A big Christmas tree glimmered in the corner, an absolute cacophony of mismatched ornaments dripping from every branch. Somewhere, some soft Christmas music was playing beneath the conversation that echoed around the room.

“Everyone, Yugo-kun’s here!” Manato called.

Immediately, the room was all abuzz with a different kind of conversation, as faces turned towards the doors, and people began milling towards them.

“Ah! You came!”

Yuzu hurried forward first with a big smile, grabbing his hand and shaking it. He recognized quite a few of the faces here already from the lobby, but there were others he didn’t, and he was suddenly swallowed up by the whole family.

“Ah, so you’re Yugo!” boomed a cheerful voice, and Yugo was spun around to vigorously shake hands with a tall, bony man in a loose-fitting yukata. “My daughter Yoko’s told me all about you!”

“O-oh, has she?” Yugo said, wondering how much there was to tell about him.

“This is Yoko’s father, Chojiro,” Yuzu introduced him. “He’s practically our grandpa, honestly. Oh! And you haven’t met Crow’s husband, Shinji yet either, right?”

No sooner had Yugo’s hand fallen out of Chojiro’s grip than the aforementioned Shinji was taking it next, giving him a firm handshake and an appraising sort of smile.

“Good to meet you,” he said.

“You too,” Yugo spluttered, already overwhelmed.

“Look at what Yugo-kun brought for us,” Manato said, showing off the poinsettias, and Ruri and Yuzu both oohed and ahhed over it. Yuzu swept the flowers from Manato’s hands and went off towards a table near one of the windows to set it out.

“I, uh, I wasn’t sure what I should bring,” Yugo said.

“It was so sweet of you to think to bring them!” Manato said, squeezing his shoulders and smiling brightly at him. “Now, who haven’t you met yet? Jack, come meet Yugo-kun!”

She tugged Yugo around to yet another set of people who had joined the crowd, and held Yugo in front of her as though he were her son she were showing off.

“Jack, this is Yugo-kun, Selena’s fiance!”

The tall, blond man glanced Yugo up and down, a critical gaze that reminded him a little bit of the way Shun had glowered at him. The woman next to him, though, smiled brightly. She shifted the child in her arms, who was currently attempting to grab at her glasses, to reach for Yugo’s hand.

“We heard all about it!” she said in what seemed to be a permanently breathless tone of voice. “You pulled her off the tracks!! That’s so brave of you!”

“Oh, uh, well I just did what anyone would have done,” he said, bobbed up and down by the pumping of her hand.

“This is my younger brother, Jack, and his wife, Carly,” Manato introduced them. “And this is their little one, Suzume.”

Manato smiled as she reached out to ruffle the child’s rough cut black hair. The little girl was momentarily distracted from her quest to steal her mother’s glasses to stare wide-eyed at Yugo. In spite of all of Yugo’s nerves, he couldn’t resist smiling at her. She was just so round and small!!

“It’s nice to meet you!” he said, more to the baby than to her parents. 

“Hmph,” was all Jack said, folding his arms, and Carly nudged him with her free elbow, giving him a look that made him blush.

“Ah, so this is the famous Yugo-san,” said a low, almost monotone voice. 

Manato turned Yugo towards the voice, beaming.

“Oh, good, you’re here! I didn’t see you slip in, Reiji-kun,” she said.

Just the faintest skitter of a blush appeared over the young man’s pale cheeks, but he hid it behind a push of his glasses.

“Well, we certainly couldn’t miss it, even if it had been delayed,” he said, and Yugo then noticed the younger kid, probably thirteen or fourteen, clinging to Reiji’s hand and hiding half behind him as though he were ten years younger. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Yugo-san.”

He extended his hand, eyes fixed on Yugo with a sort of almost frightening look, but Yugo was started to get a little exhausted of being anxious.

“Um, good to meet you too!” he said, and he smiled down at the child behind him. “And you, too!”

The child shied back slightly, but peeked another eye out around Reiji’s back.

“Forgive Reira. They don’t do very well in large gatherings, even with family,” said Reiji. “Though, perhaps we can’t really call ourselves as such.”

“Oh, that’s enough of that, Reiji-kun, you and Reira are just as much my kids as the rest of them,” Manato said, reaching forward and smushing his cheeks in the sort of way that only a mom can. He blushed a little more visibly this time, muttering something about saying hello to others, then nodded at Yugo and wandered off with Reira. Yugo was a little confused as to what that all meant, but it didn’t seem the time to ask. Man, Selena had a HUGE family though...even without the next door neighbors, it seemed like she must have a million siblings!

“You haven’t met Yoko’s kids yet, either, right?” Manato said. “Let me introduce you —”

“Manato! Kitchen emergency!” came a shout, and Manato and Yugo both looked towards it. A woman that Yugo remembered as Manato’s older sister, Aki, had leaned her head in from one of the other doors at the other end of the room.

“Oh, not again,” Manato sighed. She squeezed Yugo’s shoulder again. “I’m so sorry to leave you for a moment here — why don’t you go get yourself something to eat? Yoko will probably be starting some sort of game soon.”

“No, it’s okay! Go take care of whatever you need to take care of,” Yugo said.

Manato smiled in a harried sort of way, patted his shoulder, and hurried off.

For a moment, Yugo just hovered, adrift in the middle off the large room with people he’d only just met. He glanced towards the table piled with the kind of food for grazing that Manato had pointed out and edged towards it. He already saw Shinji, Shuzo, and Chojiro near the table balancing paper plates in their hands, so at least he didn’t feel like he was the only one eating. Though to be honest, he wasn’t sure that would stop him — he was  _ starving _ all of a sudden. He’d been so anxious earlier that he hadn’t been able to eat much for the most of the day.

Yugo piled some fruit onto his plate, and started to reach for a basket of fried chicken when his hand bumped into another hand also reaching for it. He immediately jerked back, almost upsetting his plate in his hurry to apologize.

“Sorry!” he said.

The owner of the hand he’d bumped blinked at him, sharp hazel eyes considering him a moment. She squinted, as though she were trying to place him, the chicken momentarily forgotten. Then recognition flared in her eyes, and she tapped her fist against her palm.

“Oh,” she said. “You must be Yugo, huh?”

For just a second, all Yugo could do was stare open-mouthed at her. Her face was almost just like Selena’s, though a bit rounder, her frame shorter and stockier than Selena’s lean build and with a slight suntan. Her hair was chopped short, almost as though she’d done it herself, floofing around her in smooth green waves. She was, obviously,  _ super _ pretty, and he found himself briefly taken aback by it. He fumbled for his words.

“T-that’s right! That’s me,” he said.

“Ehhh,” the woman said, flicking her gaze up and down at him. “Huh. I’m not sure what I pictured, but I don’t think it was you.”

Yugo blushed — he legitimately couldn’t tell if she was insulting him or complimenting him. There was something so blunt about her tone that it could have been either — or both. She squinted at him again, as though completely confused by his existence.

“Well, good to meet you,” she said, putting her hand out. “My name’s Rin. I’m one of Selena’s  _ other  _ older sisters.”

_ Rin _ , Yugo thought, remembering the name drop from the lobby the other night. He took her hand, and winced a bit when she squeezed. Was she  _ trying _ to break his hand? He squeezed back just to make a point, and he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw her lips flicker into the ghost of a smile for just a moment. But then she was back to her neutral, near-scowl. Nearly the same expression Selena wore every day at the train station, actually. Maybe that was just how the sisters looked naturally.

“It’s good to meet you too,” he said. “I’m sorry if I’m a little — this is a lot for me.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, and Rin tilted her head slightly. Then she actually did smirk, shaking her head.

“This family is a hell of a ride, that’s for sure,” she said. “Not used to it, I guess?”

“Not at all,” Yugo said, letting out a huge breath. “I’m — well, I don’t really see a lot of people normally, so this is a lot.”

“Besides Selena, at least,” Rin said in a strange, bland tone.

“Oh. Y-yeah,” he said, blushing deeper.

“How did you meet Selena, anyway?”

“Um, she comes through my station. I work at the train station — taking tokens.”

“Is that right?”

Rin’s eyes flicked up and down him again, and Yugo had the uncomfortable feeling that she was trying to look right through him, as though she knew he was lying and she was going to get him to expose himself.

“Well, huh,” she said, reaching for a cup of already poured punch. “I guess I have to say I’m surprised, is all. Selena never seemed like...”

She glanced at him again, and then shrugged, tipping the cup to her lips and taking a gulp. Yugo took advantage of the moment to reach for the now unimpeded fried chicken and put two onto his paper plate.

Rin seemed like she was going to speak again, but Yugo’s attention jumped away from her as something collided with his legs, nearly toppling him over. It took all of his dexterity to avoid dropping his plate of food all over the child who had just careened into his legs.

“Whoa!!” he said. He dropped his plate onto the table and quickly reached out to steady the kid. “You okay there?”

The kid couldn’t be older than five or six, and looked up wide-eyed at Yugo from under the brim of his wide yellow rain hat. Then the boy pointed at him, eyes lighting up.

“You’re Yugo!” he said.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Yugo said, smiling. “Don’t think I’ve met you yet, though.”

The boy grinned up at him, making his chubby face light up. His hat slipped a bit over his forehead as he immediately glommed to Yugo’s leg, wrapping both of his own around Yugo’s like a barnacle.

“You look strong!” the boy giggled. “Can you lift me?”

“Tanner,” Rin said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t bully him.”

Yugo, however, couldn’t help but grin. Pretending it took considerable effort, he groaned exaggeratedly as he lifted up his leg with the kid still clinging onto it, taking a big lumbering step forward. Tanner giggled wildly, squeezing into Yugo’s leg.

“Hang on, you’re about to lift off again!” Yugo said, making rocket ship noises with his teeth as he took another big step forward with Tanner still there.

Tanner squealed, giggling as he finally let go and tumbled backwards onto the carpet. Yugo’s leg did feel a bit tired from hauling him around — he was small, but surprisingly heavy! — but he still smiled. His eyes flickered and he noticed Rin watching him with an expression he didn’t quite understand in her eyes.

“Hey!” Rin said, eyes shooting away from him. “Frank! Put that down!”

Yugo glanced over, and saw that the plate he had sat down was currently in the hands of yet another younger child. He grinned mischievously as he snatched some fruit from Yugo’s plate and made to run for it.

“If you’re gonna take that, I guess I’m gonna take this,” Yugo said, snatching the hat off the kid’s head as he tried to bolt away.

“Hey!!” Frank said, eyes widening.

A mischievous glint came into the boy’s eye despite his lost hat, and he popped his stolen fruit into his mouth.

“Do you want it back now?” he said, through a mouthful of fruit.

“Nah,” Yugo said. “But I guess I might have to just eat your hat, now.”

“Hey!! Don’t do that!!”

Yugo made an exaggerated nom-nom motion with his mouth near the hat, and Frank jumped up for it, giggling as Yugo danced out of the way. Tanner grabbed hold of his leg again with a shriek of laughter, clearly very excited about this new game. Frank caught on and latched onto Yugo’s other leg — he was taller and heavier than Yugo, so Yugo really upped his groans of effort as he began to march in circles with them still clinging on.

“You won’t escape!” Frank said. “You gotta give back the hostage!”

“Urgghhh,” Yugo said, in exaggerated groan as he took another big step, making both of the kids giggle. “Okay, okay...here it — goes!”

Impulsively, he tossed the hat towards Rin. Rin’s eyes widened, and she caught the hat almost instinctively.

“Rin-oneechan has it!!” Tanner shouted, pointing. He released Yugo’s leg and scrambled up to his feet.

Rin stared at them all for just a second. And then, to Yugo’s relief, a mischievous smile of her own quirked at her lips.

“Oh, you’re going to have to work  _ much _ harder to get it from me,” she said, and without another warning, she bolted off.

“Hey!!” said Frank, letting go of Yugo’s leg and joining in the chase.

Yugo got a little caught up in the excitement, forgetting his plate and his hunger. He jogged after the kids and Rin. Despite their small size, they were trying a little harder, and they outpaced him quickly. Rin grinned as she held the hat high out of Frank’s reach, sticking out her tongue at him like she was much younger than she was. Tanner took a running jump to land on her back, and she oofed. The hat leaped from her hands and into Frank’s. 

Frank didn’t seem satisfied that the game was over though, grinning as he spun it around his finger.

“I’m it now!” he said. “Try to get it!”

He ran off towards the other side of the ball room, where the windows and curtains were.

“No fair!” Tanner whined, sliding down from Rin’s back. “I’m too small! Frank’s too fast.”

“Hey, let’s make a truce,” Yugo said, catching up to him. “I’ll give you a hand.”

Tanner blinked at him, but when Yugo turned around and motioned that he could climb on his back, his face lit up. He pushed his own hat back from his face, and scrambled up. Yugo oofed a bit at his fingers and elbows connecting with his back, but he hefted Tanner onto his shoulders.

Frank glanced back, and his eyes widened to see Yugo charging towards him with Tanner on top. He scrambled back, holding the hat as high up as he could, but he was no match for Yugo and Tanner’s combination — Tanner snatched the hat back with his greater height and squealed with triumph. 

“No fair!!” Frank said. “That’s cheating!”

He shot a look at Rin, who shook her head.

“No way, kiddo, you’re way too tall for me,” she said. “Buuut...”

She caught Yugo’s eye, and Yugo got the sudden sense of competition. A grin split his face in spite of himself.

“Hang on, Tanner-kun,” he said. “I think Rin-san’s about to go for it!”

“Go, go, go!!” Tanner said, kicking his legs against Yugo’s shoulders.

Yugo galloped off, and he didn’t have to look back to know that Rin was in pursuit.

He nearly fell over when Tanner yelped and then shrieked with laughter as he was snatched up under the armpits and lifted back from Yugo’s shoulders. Yugo hopped backwards a few times to compensate for his weight suddenly being lifted away, and spun around to find Rin plopping Tanner onto her shoulders instead.

“Looks like the lines of battle have changed,” she said, grinning. “Tanner’s on my side now!”

“Then I get Yugo!!” Frank said, running over and grabbing his arm.

“Sounds good to me!” Yugo said. “All right, Frank-kun, let’s see if we can get that hat!!”

The game didn’t last too much longer — just enough for Yugo to feel totally tired out. He groaned as he flopped backwards onto the carpet. Frank and Tanner tried to drag him back up for a bit, laughing when he played dead, but then someone called for them, and they scampered off.

Rin flopped down to sit next to him, her cheeks flushed and shoulders heaving.

“You’ve got a lot of energy,” she said, smirking.

“Not as much as they do,” Yugo gasped. “Whew! I’m wiped.”

“Tell me about it.”

Her smirk turned to something a little softer, and he felt something that might not be the heat from exertion pass over him for a moment.

“You’re pretty good with them,” she said. ‘Kids, I mean. You put up with an awful lot from some kids you just met.”

Yugo shrugged, arms sprawling out on the carpet on either side of him.

“Kids are pretty easy to get along with,” he said. “Especially when you’re me and you never really grew up.”

He smiled and crossed his eyes, sticking out tongue a little. He was rewarded with a soft, almost surprised chuckle spilling from Rin’s lips. She looked him up and down again, but there was something softer about the expression now.

For a moment, the silence spread between them, filled only with the sound of chatter and music. Her smile slowly slipped away, and her gaze seemed to go far away.

“Selena really never told you anything about us?”

There was something...sad about the way she said it. Something tightening in her throat. He rolled his head over towards her, frowning. Her eyes had slipped away from him, and she was staring out at the rest of her family, though as though she weren’t really seeing anything. He let his head roll back to look up at the ceiling. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what she must be feeling, and now his lie twisted in his stomach, making him feel sick. He’d never spoken to Selena. He didn’t know if she would have mentioned her family to him if they had actually spoken. But Rin seemed so  _ sad _ , to think that her sister wouldn’t even talk about them.

“T-the truth is,” he blurted, and for a moment, the truth lingered on his tongue, threatened to spill out at once. “I mean. Even though I’m. Selena and I. We’re. The thing is, she’s still really a mystery to me sometimes. I don’t always really know what she’s thinking.”

Dammit, dammit! His stupid mouth! He was getting all tangled up in the lie even deeper!

But he couldn’t tell the truth, not now! He’d ruin their party. He’d make all of them so sad. He couldn’t...he couldn’t do that to them. Not now.

“B-but I think, there’s no way she can’t think about you guys all the time!” he said, popping up, sitting up. “Because...because I can’t imagine that you could have a family like this and not love them.”

He swallowed.

“Selena is so lucky,” he said. “That she’s got so many people that care so much about her.”

He bit his lip, almost afraid to look at Rin. When he finally flicked his gaze towards her, he found she was staring at him, her eyes as sharp and clear as glass, and he wondered what she was seeing in him. Then she turned away, and ran a hand through her short hair.

“Lucky, huh?” she said softly. “I guess she is.”

A silence fell between them, but it was soft, like a cloud that had wrapped about them. For a long moment, they both just sat there, Yugo still sprawled on the floor, and Rin looking at nothing with her arms wrapped around her knees.

That silence immediately dissipated as Yoko appeared in a whirlwind of movement, a huge grin over her face.

“Ah-ha! There you are!” she said, leaning down and grabbing both Yugo and Rin, hauling them up to her feet. “Thought you could hide from game time, did you?”

“Oh, god,” Rin said, rolling her eyes. “We do this every year.”

“And you don’t get to sit out! Since you were both late to reporting, that means you’re paired up!”

“Huh? For what?” Yugo said, head spinning.

Rin sighed as Yoko marched the two of them off towards where the rest of the family was gathered.

“Now you get to see just how lucky we are to be a part of this crazy family,” she said, rolling her eyes — though a smile pulled at her lips as she said it.

Yugo frowned, more confused than ever, but he let himself be carted off to whatever the heck was about to happen next.


	4. Christmas Scavenger Hunt

Yoko steered Yugo and Rin over to where the rest of the family had begun to gather, near the giant Christmas tree at the other end of the room.

“Now that everyone’s accounted for,” she said. “It’s time to get the  _ real _ party started!”

Someone cheered, and Yoko flashed a grin. Yugo shot Rin a confused look, but Rin only sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Just wait,” she said under her breath, as Yoko made her way to the center of the group and pulled a chair over to stand on it. “You’ll get to see just how much of a ride this family is.”

Yoko thrust her fist up into the air, and then opened it to reveal something small, green, and shiny between her thumb and forefinger. Yugo blinked at it.

“Most of you all know the drill,” she said. “The Christmas pickle, the twin to this one here, is hidden somewhere in the school. First pair to find it wins!”

Christmas pickle? Yugo frowned and squinted. He supposed that thing could definitely be a tiny, shiny pickle. What’s a Christmas pickle, anyway? Were pickles a Christmas thing?

“What’s the prize this year?” someone called out, and Yugo glanced over to see that it was Aki, hands cupped around her mouth.

“It’s a secret, and you know it,” Yoko said. “I’m counting down! Three...two...one!”

Instantly, the room scattered. Crow scooped up Tanner onto his shoulders, and they bolted off with Tanner shrieking with laughter. Shuzo and Manato were already carefully inspecting the Christmas tree, though it seemed most other pairs had already left the room. Yugo, a bit shell-shocked from how quickly they’d all moved, glanced at Rin for some kind of explanation.

What he got was a deep sigh, and her running her hands through her bangs.

“I guess we’d better mosey off, or Yoko-obasan will nag us,” she said. “Come on — it’s never hidden in the main room so we might as well go out.”

Yugo nodded vaguely and started to follow her towards one of the doors.

“Is this...a normal Christmas thing?” he managed to ask.

Rin snorted.

“Hardly,” she said. “Yoko went to America once and found this dumb pickle ornament in a novelty shop. It had a tag on it about some old Irish tradition of hiding the pickle, and she just decided it was going to be ours.”

She shot him a look over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows.

“Still think this is a lucky family to be a part of?” she said, clearly teasing.

“Yes!” Yugo blurted, with perhaps more sincerity than the question demanded. “I mean — what a fun idea!! And everyone already looks like they’re having so much fun!”

He gestured towards the pairs who were beginning to look under the tables, and Shinji and Amanda who were snickering as they dug through a bowl of chips. Rin looked over them, too, and then glanced at Yugo again. A faint smile rose to her lips.

“I guess so,” she said. “Well, come on — just because you’re new to this doesn’t mean I’ll forgive you if you hold me back. I’m determined to win this year.”

The faint excitement in her voice triggered Yugo’s own competitive streak quite suddenly. He hadn’t done a scavenger hunt in years!

He followed Rin out into the hallway. She looked both ways, back towards the door, and then towards the other end of the hallway. She paused, and Yugo followed her gaze. Two guys around his own age stood at the other end of the hall — well, one of them stood on the floor, and the other was on his shoulders. The one on the bottom looked incredibly peeved about the situation.

“Yuya, it’s not up there,” the young man said, wincing as a shoe dug particularly deeply into his shoulder.

“Mom always hides it up high! And there’s plenty of things it could be on up here,” the boy on top said, cranking his head back to look up into the rafters. “I’ll bet I can use my phone to see if anything’s shiny up there.”

“Yoko-obasan hid it in the rafters last year,” Rin said, approaching them. “I doubt it’s there this year.”

“These are  _ different _ rafters than last year’s,” the young man on the other’s shoulder said. He looked down, though, and when his eyes glanced over Yugo, he brightened. His unfortunate base grunted as he lowered himself down and hopped from his shoulders to scurry over.

“You must be Yugo!” he said, grabbing Yugo’s hand in both of his and pumping wildly. “I’m Yuya! I’m one of Yoko’s kids! I didn’t get to meet you before! Oh! And this is my brother, Yuto!”

“Please apologize for bruising my shoulders before you go introducing yourself to others,” Yuto groaned, rubbing both of his shoulders. 

“Oh, uh, nice to meet you!” Yugo said, overwhelmed again by the brightness and warmness of yet another introduction.

“I’m really glad you were able to come!” Yuya said, still shaking Yugo’s hand. “We were all really upset to hear about what happened to Selena, but it’s a good thing you were there! Too bad we couldn’t have all met under different circumstances.”

“All right, all right,” Rin said, pulling Yuya’s hands off of Yugo. “Enough of distracting my game partner. You’re not going to distract us from winning.”

Yuya’s eyes sparkled, and he grinned.

“Darn,” he said, dramatically snapping his fingers. “And here I was sure that would work.”

“Save the charm for when we’re not competing,” Rin said, hooking one of her arms into Yugo’s. “Come on, let’s check out the stage. I’ll bet it’s in the curtains this time.”

“Oh, uh, okay!” Yugo said, suddenly very aware of how  _ close _ Rin was...how her arm was hooked tightly into his as she led him away, how up this close, he could smell that her shampoo was sort of minty, and she was just a little bit taller than he was and her arms felt  _ very _ toned beneath her long sleeve sweater — gah!!

_ Where are my thoughts going??  _ he thought, flushing bright red and ducking his head to the side to hope she wouldn’t look and see.  _ She’s — she’s your sort-of-accidentally-fiance’s sister!! And you’re lying to her! And also you have a crush on  _ Selena!

He shook the thoughts away as Rin led them down the hallway and through a door on the right. His awkward thoughts immediately wiped away, mouth dropping open as they stepped inside — an actual  _ theater _ .

The place wasn’t like, the biggest theater, he was sure, but he hadn’t been to many, so it felt HUGE. There were rows of plush looking red seats surrounding a lowered orchestra pit, and then the stage itself was lined with little glowing lights that outlined it in the dim. Big red curtains draped on either side of it, leaving the center of the stage in a smoky dimness that blended into the black backdrop.

“Is this your guys’  _ house _ ?” he blurted.

Rin laughed, releasing his arm — he found himself briefly disappointed by the disappearance of her warmth, and just as quickly wiped the thought away.

“No way,” she said. “This is You Show Drama School — my dad’s theater school.”

She led the way down the steps between the seats and towards the stage.

“Our families live next door to each other, but we could never fit all of us in one of them, so we always come here for gatherings,” Rin said. “Perks of having it, I guess.”

“Whoa,” Yugo said, eyes widening, head swiveling as he tried to take in every bit of it. “That’s so cool!”

“Yeah I...guess,” Rin said, hesitating slightly. “But yeah. My dad runs classes and community theater and stuff.”

“Do you do it too? Acting or anything?”

“Oh me? Nah. That was always really Yuzu’s and Ruri’s department...and Selena was always into choreography.”

_ She  _ is  _ a dancer! I knew it!  _ Yugo allowed himself a small celebratory air punch.

“I got more into the admin side of things with dad, I guess,” she said. She led them over to one of the wings that led up onto the stage along the side. “That’s where I was, actually, when I couldn’t make it to the hospital that night. I’d been out at one of the branch locations.”

“Whoa,” Yugo said, impressed. “That’s so cool! You get to travel a lot?”

“Yeah,” Rin said, in a sort of noncommittal tone that Yugo couldn’t interpret. “So I’m thinking Yoko probably hid it somewhere low this time, to balance out last year. Let’s check around the tech station.”

He hurried to keep up with her, trying not to trip as he continue to look at everything and take it all in. He turned to walk backwards, looking out over the seats. From up here, they all were shrouded in shadow — but for just a moment, he could imagine them being filled with people, and wondered what it might feel like to be up on stage with everyone looking at him. He wasn’t sure he liked it. 

Rin led the way to the back, flipping on a backstage light. It wasn’t very bright, but at least you could sort of see what you were doing. She took her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight, sweeping it around.

“Yuya was onto something with the phone,” she said. “If it’s hidden in the dark, we’d see it with a light.”

She dug her phone from her pocket and flipped on her flashlight. Yugo took out his phone, too, but it was very clearly several versions older than Rin’s, and he wasn’t sure if his even  _ had _ a flashlight function. She didn’t seem to notice, she was already sweeping the light back and forth.

“Is...are Yuya and Yuto your brothers?” he asked. “I don’t think I caught...there were a lot of names today.”

Rin laughed, a sound that bounced off the theater walls and carried, he was sure, down to the seats below.

“God, yeah, I’m sure,” she said. “And no one gave you a real crash course. This family’s such a mess to keep track of. Okay. Lemme try to give you the low down as simple as possible.”

She kept walking into the wings, swinging her light around, and he followed while she began to count on her free hand.

“So, Selena’s my sis. Me, her, Yuzu, and Ruri are all quadruplets. Yeah, my mom almost died.”

She snickered, and Yugo couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“Our parents are Shuzo and Manato. Shun is our older brother — he’s Manato’s kid from another relationship, and Ray’s our older sister...but that’s where it really gets messy.”

She turned on her heel as they reach the wall, and began to work her way towards the other back corner, with Yugo on her heels.

“See, okay. Ray’s Reiji and Reira’s bio sister. They all have the same dad, but Ray’s mom divorced his ass when Ray was little. She got really sick, though, and since she was friends with our dad at the time, they got friend-married just so dad could get custody of Ray — rather than let her go back with Asshole Dad. After Ray’s mom died, our dad got married to Manato, who’d already had Shun, and then me and my sisters came along a little while later.”

“Oh,” Yugo said, his head already spinning. “But then...Reiji and Reira were here today? I remember meeting them.”

“Yeah, well, their dad got married  _ again _ , this time to someone who’s as asshole as he is, and they had Reiji and Reira. Reiji walked out with Reira a few years back, came to live with us for a while til he got on his feet. We pretty much consider the pair of them our siblings by default.”

“Wow,” Yugo said. “That’s...well, I don’t know what that is.”

He did know what he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure if he  _ should _ . What he wanted to say was  _ that’s great! _ Not great about the bad dad, but great that...well, that Reiji had had such a nice family to fall back on. The way Yugo was figuring it, Reiji and Reira technically weren’t even related to this family but...but here they were, at the family gathering, called family by Yoko and the others. It was...nice. 

He didn’t know if he could word that right, so he didn’t try. Rin shook her head as they reached the back corner, and led them back the way they’d come, towards a door Yugo had seen when they’d made their first sweep through.

“No good here,” she said. “Let’s check the prop closet.”

“What about Yuya and the others, then?” Yugo said, his mind still trying to untangle the family. Where did they fit in?

Rin’s hand closed around the door and pulled it open.

Heavy breaths and the sound of a gasp spilled out the crack of the door. Someone swore, a leg kicked something with a big thump, and Rin and Yugo stared blankly into the dim closet at a pair of wide eyes staring out of flushed cheeks. 

Ray swore again and fumbled to pull her rumpled shirt back up over the shoulder that it had fallen down from, clearing her throat. She quickly ran her hand through her hair, as though it might somehow hide the fact that it was so far gone from its pigtails that it might as well have been loose. The man beside her’s fingers tripped as he tried to button his shirt back up, but the marks on his neck were already way too obvious to be hidden. His cheeks were so red you could have mistaken him for a tomato.

For just a moment, the two pairs stared at each other. Yugo’s mouth hung open, eyes wide as he realized what they’d just interrupted. Rin, on the other hand, looked like she was in a wrestling match with her own lips, which were incredibly determined to split into a grin.

“It’s not in here,” Ray said finally, in a surprisingly calm voice. “We checked.”

“I figured,” Rin said, her own voice barely concealing a bubble of laughter. Her cheeks were going red from trying to hold it down.  _ Yugo’s _ cheeks were going red from the embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry!” he squeaked.

Rin just laughed, it all spilling out of her at once.

“I’ll let everyone know we checked here already,” she said sweetly. “Have fun.”

“Rin, if you say something that makes anyone else come and bother us I  _ will _ post your diary on Twitter —”

Rin closed the door on them before Ray could finish her threat. She was still snickering as she turned away from the door. When she caught the look on Yugo’s face, she patted his arm reassuringly.

“Don’t be so embarrassed,” she said. “Their own fault for wanting to get into it during Christmas. Honestly.”

Yugo just groaned and covered his eyes with both hands.

“I feel like I did something  _ wrong _ ,” he moaned.

“Nah, they do this every year. Honestly, you’d think being married a few years, they’d get over their horny teenager act by now.”

She snickered again, guiding a still shell-shocked Yugo away from the closet.

“Anyway, that answers your question — that’s where Yuya and his brothers fit in.”

“Huh?”

“Yoko’s family’s always lived next door to us, but that guy in there — that’s Ray’s husband, Zarc, and Yoko’s oldest son. Yuya, Yuto, Yuuri, and Sora are my brothers-in-law.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Yugo said, eyes widening. “Oh, okay. That makes a lot more sense.”

He hesitated, thinking about what that might be like. Not just having the big family, but having basically a second family living next door? Yugo wracked his brains trying to think of the last person he’d spoken to for something other than business reasons before tonight. He sort of talked to the old lady in the apartment below him, sometimes, but she was deaf in one ear and half deaf in the other, so it was mostly her talking very loudly  _ at _ him while he listened politely.

“You’re all really lucky,” he said, before he thought about it.

Rin stopped, pausing just before stepping back on the stage. She frowned as she looked back at him. For a moment, she didn’t say anything, and he thought that maybe she was trying to look through him for something.

“You said that before,” she said. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, I mean,” Yugo fumbled. “You...you all have...you all have each other. Even when you’re bothering each other, or making threats because you walked in on something they didn’t want you to see...everyone seems really happy today. Like...maybe you always have someone to talk to when you need someone. You’re never alone.”

“More like we don’t have any privacy,” Rin said, half smiling. “And we can’t keep secrets.”

“But I think that’s okay,” Yugo said, pushing forward. “Because that means — well, your family always has someone you can talk to.”

He bit his lip, fumbling for what to say next. Rin turned all the way towards him — with the light behind her, outlining her frame, he thought again that she was  _ really _ pretty. It must be because she looked almost just like Selena.

“Do you... _ not _ have someone to talk to?” she asked.

He, just for a second, was sure that she was trying to catch him in a slip up — to say that no, he didn’t, and then she’d call him out because didn’t he have Selena to talk to?

But there was something soft about the way she said it, something about the way her eyes softened, that made him think that maybe it was a real question.

“I haven’t really had...a lot of time to get to know people,” he admitted. “Or to settle in anywhere.”

He thought about continuing, but he looked down at the floor, wondering how he  _ could _ without unloading a million things and thoughts that he didn’t want to burden anyone with.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Rin cleared her throat.

“Well,” she said, and for a moment, she hesitated, and then put her hand on his arm. Gentle, at first, and then she clapped his shoulder a little more roughly, as though to hide the fact that she’d just been soft. “You’re a part of  _ this _ family now. So you’ve got a whole gamut of people to talk to.”

The words struck Yugo right in the stomach and almost left him breathless.  _ You’re a part of this family now _ . It wasn’t true, of course — he was lying. He was lying through all of it. And yet...he wanted them to be true so much that he felt almost like throwing up.

He only managed a nod, and Rin released his arm, clearing her throat into her hand again.

“Well, anyway,” she said. “Come on, we’ve got a pickle to locate.”

He followed her back out onto the stage, and Yugo realized with a start that they were no longer the only ones there. Crow with Tanner still on his shoulders were searching along the edges of the theater, and near the orchestra pit, a young man was on all fours, looking under the seats, while a slightly older man leaned over the back of the aisle behind it.

“You could be looking too, you know,” the younger one complained, his bright blue ponytail bouncing when he looked up.

“You know how I feel about mother’s various ‘traditions’,” the other said, fixing his glasses on his nose and running a hand to slick back a few misplaced strands of his purple and magenta hair. “The prize isn’t going to be anything interesting, anyway.”

“She always buys the good candy for prizes!” the younger one said. “I’m  _ not _ gonna let you drag me down on this.”

“Excellent. Then I will stand here, out of the way, and not bother you while you look.”

“Fuck you, Yuuri.”

The one with the glasses, Yuuri, glanced up when Yugo and Rin got back onto the stage, and his eyes glinted.

“Ah,” he said, standing up. “ _ There _ he is. I was wondering when I would get a chance to meet this famous rescuer-and-fiance of Selena.”

“Oh, uh, hi,” Yugo said, feeling a bit awkward talking across the theater. Voices carried easily, so they weren’t shouting, but it still felt a little weird.

Luckily, Rin led them off the stage, so soon they were only a few aisles apart.

“Speak of the devil,” Rin said. “Just telling Yugo about you guys. Yugo, this is Yuuri and Sora.”

Yuuri inclined his head with a peculiar smile on his lips. The other boy, Sora, however, didn’t seem to care, giving Yugo a brief blink in his direction, and then looking at Rin.

“It wasn’t backstage?” he asked.

“Nah, didn’t see it on the floor or in the prop closet at least,” Rin said mildly. She didn’t make any mention of what they  _ had _ seen in the prop closet, though judging by the way her lips twitched, she desperately wanted to. “I’m thinking it’s not in here.”

“Ugh,” Sora said, flopping his arms over the seats. “I guess you’re right. Mom wouldn’t put it in the same area twice. Yuuri, let’s look upstairs.”

“You’re free to go wherever you like,” Yuuri said airily. “Perhaps I want to introduce myself better to Selena’s...fiance.”

Yugo didn’t like the way he said that, like he was on to him somehow. He fidgeted — Rin, however, narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t tease him,” she said. “And what’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

Yuuri’s eyes flicked from Yugo’s feet up to his head, and he shrugged, fixing his glasses.

“Only that he doesn’t seem Selena’s...type, does he?”

Yugo was pretty sure this was like the third time someone had said that, and it made his heart sink into his feet every time. Was he really so far out of Selena’s league? Maybe it was sort of a good thing he’d never introduced himself, or asked her out — well, maybe it would have been better, actually, if she’d just rejected him and he wasn’t in this situation now.

“I-I was actually as surprised as you are, really,” Yugo said, faking a laugh. “I got super lucky, I think.”

“Hmm,” said Yuuri, that same smile on his lips. “Perhaps.”

“Okay, that’s enough of the third degree,” Rin said, pulling Yugo back. “You’re not going to get away with distracting us from the goal, Yuuri.”

“Hey! You’re the ones distracting us!” Sora said, vaulting the seats and grabbing Yuuri’s arm. “Yuuri, let’s go upstairs!! It might be in one of the offices!”

“Ugh,” Yuuri said, rolling his eyes. He let Sora drag him away, though, and after a beat, Rin grabbed hold of Yugo’s arm and dragged him after them, towards the doors.

“Where should we look next?” Yugo asked, massively aware of the fact that Rin’s hand was on his arm still and she had a  _ really _ nice grip actually and he couldn’t stop thinking about it — hang on hang on where were his thoughts going??

Rin released his arm so quickly that he wondered if maybe she hadn’t realized she was holding onto it until just then.

“I dunno,” she said. “Let’s try the ballroom, actually — it’s never in there, which means it’s about time that Yoko puts it in there. And also I want some food.”

Yugo’s stomach rumbled as if in answer, and he remembered that he never actually got to eat any of the food he’d picked up before. 

“Great idea,” he said, and followed her back into the ballroom.

It looked like they weren’t the only ones who’d had the idea of searching the ballroom again. Shuzo and Manato were now checking under the tables, and Chojiro was dragging a disgruntled looking Shun over to look underneath the presents stacked under the tree. Yoko stood where they’d left her, on top of the chair with her arms folded, looking immensely pleased.

Rin made a beeline for the food table, grabbing the plate she’d left behind. Yugo was pleased to find that his was still where he’d left it too. He immediately popped some potato chips into his mouth, turning back to watch the rest of the searchers. Rin followed suit, nibbling on some fruit. As they watched, Yuya and Yuto came back inside and started looking behind the window curtains.

“She’s hid it really well this year,” Rin said. “Usually someone’s found it by now.”

“Hmm,” said Yugo, looking around the room. He didn’t really think it would be hidden here, because surely someone would have found it by now, right?

“So hey, what do you do, anyway? I don’t think I ever asked,” said Rin.

“Me?” Yugo said.

“No, the chicken on your plate. Yes, you,” she said, smirking and raising her eyebrows at him. “You know that I work with my dad’s school, so your turn. What do you do outside of dating my sister?”

Yugo nearly choked on a honeydew slice, and pounded his chest to clear it. He coughed a few times.

“Um, well, really not much,” he said. “I work at a token collection booth at the train station — that’s where I met Selena. She takes my route every morning.”

“Is it fun?”

“Well...no,” Yugo admitted. “It’s kind of boring, actually. But it gives me a lot of time to think, and read.”

“Oh?” said Rin, glancing at him, intrigued. “What do you usually read?”

“Mechanics magazines, mostly,” he said. “And blueprints and stuff. I’m trying to build my own motorcycle.”

“Get out!!”

Rin dropped her plate onto the table, her whole face lighting up as she turned towards him. It was perhaps the most excited he’d seen her since they played with the kids earlier, and it was — it was so radiant he was momentarily speechless.

“You  _ make _ motorcycles?” she said eagerly. “Like, just for  _ fun _ ?”

Yugo swallowed down a bite of food and pounded his chest with his fist again, to get it down. Her excitement was catching, though, and he hadn’t had a chance to talk to  _ anyone _ about this, so...

“I’m mostly just playing around right now,” he said. “Buying parts is really expensive. But someday I’m gonna have my own shop! I’m trying to earn enough to pay for trade school.”

“I’ve always loved bikes,” Rin said, sounding almost wistful. “Yoko used to show me her old ones, how to fix them up — I got my license a while back but I don’t have my own bike, so I haven’t driven in ages. I always wanted to get into customization, honestly.”

“That’s awesome!” Yugo said, eyes bright. “I still don’t have mine...don’t have a bike to practice on yet.”

He blushed, but Rin gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder.

“You should tell Yoko, then! She’d love to induct another biker into the family. And since you already know how to fix them — she’d be all over that. You should show me your work in progress sometime. I’m not an expert, but like I said, I’ve helped fixing them before...I really like the way they look in the inside, you know?”

“Right!” Yugo said, brightening even more. “It’s like a puzzle, trying to figure out which parts go where. People like to cover up the outsides thinking the insides are messy, but they’re so pretty on the inside. Everything fits together so perfectly.”

Rin looked at Yugo again, this time with a new light in her eyes that he couldn’t quite read — but it was something that bolstered him. Wow! He hadn’t been able to talk about this to anyone in...ever! And she totally got it, too!!

Rin looked about to say something else, but then a yell rang out over the room.

“There it is!” Yuya cried excitedly. “I found it!”

Everyone in the room whipped around, Rin and Yugo too. They craned their necks upwards to where Yuya pointed. Rin swore, and Yugo’s eyes widened. 

He wasn’t surprised they hadn’t all seen it for a while — Yoko had somehow gotten the pickle hanging from one of the chandeliers, a good ten-ish feet up. It spun softly, glittering in the light.

“It has to be in your hand for it to count as a win!” Yoko called through her cupped hands, sounding immensely pleased with herself.

Yuto sighed as Yuya tried to crawl onto his shoulders, but he let Yuya get up there.

“I can’t reach it! I’m gonna have to stand on your shoulders,” Yuya said.

“I’ll bet I can knock it down with this,” Chojiro said, grabbing a whole orange from the table.

Yugo glanced at Rin. Her eyes were fixed on the pickle, and he could almost see the calculations going on in her brain, trying to figure out how she could get it.

“How high can you jump?” he asked.

“Huh?” Rin said, not quite looking at him.

“I could give you a boost,” he said. “I could boost you up there if you think you could jump that high.”

Rin blinked, coming out of her reverie and then looking at him. He grinned.

“Hey, I like winning too,” he said. “And I’m stronger than I look.”

Rin glanced him up and down again, eyes narrowing as though doing more calculations. She looked at the pickle. Yuya was still just barely out of reach on Yuto’s shoulders, but that was mostly because Yuto kept swaying, having trouble keeping him on there, and wincing at the heels digging into him. Chojiro’s throw swung wide and almost hit Yuya in the face, nearly making him tumble over. Behind them, the doors opened, and people who’d heard the cry of “found it” were starting to tumble back inside. They didn’t have much time before they were crowded out.

Rin met his eyes. She grinned, too.

“What the hell,” she said. “Let’s try it!”

She grabbed his arm and they raced over to below the chandelier. As soon as Rin released him, Yugo crouched low, putting his hands together in a sort of stirrup. 

“On three?” he said.

“On three,” she agreed. “One...”

She looked up at the pickle again, judging its distance, judging the distance of Yuya and Yuto’s tower.

“Two...” said Yugo, situating himself, bracing for her weight.

“Three!”

Rin ran towards him, leaped, and landed squarely in his hands. As he felt her weight sink against his arms, he heaved upwards, her knee bending and her body springing upwards along with his movement.

He immediately leaped back up, muscles aching — he saw Rin soar upwards a few feet, heard a yelp from Yuya, and then she was falling and he lurched forward, grabbing her out of the air — and then collapsing straight back down with her on top of him.

For a moment, they laid there, gasping, the room quiet. Yugo’s body twinged a bit in protest from the strain.

Then Rin thrust her fist into the air.

“Got it!” she yelled.

Yugo’s head spun from the cheer that ran around the room, and then he and Rin were being pulled to their feet by many pairs of hands, greeted by claps on the back and hair ruffles and even hugs. Yugo’s felt almost a little bit high, flushed from the excitement.

“That was so cool!” Yuya said, grabbing both of them in a hug with each of his arms. “Nice moves!! Yugo, we might have to get you on stage!”

“That was awesome, Rin-nee!” Tanner squealed, grabbing at her legs.

“Throw me next, Yugo!” said Frank, tugging on his shirt.

“All right, all right, let them out to breathe!” Yoko’s voice cut above the clatter. “And let me through, you heathens!”

She ended up having the elbow her way through the family, pushing herself through until she was standing in front of Rin and Yugo. She had what looked like two big boxes of chocolates, and a huge grin on her face.

“Great showing for a first time player!” she said, clapping Yugo on the shoulder. “And this is your first win, Rin! You guys did great!”

“Next time, put it somewhere where we won’t break bones to get it,” Rin said, and Yoko laughed as she shoved each box of chocolate into each of their arms. 

“Congrats!” she said, clapping them both on the shoulders again. “But don’t let it get to your heads — no one’s beating me at poker later.”

“You can say that when you beat me!” Aki yelled, and then laughter exploded all around the group. 

As the family fell to chattering, with a few more shoulder punches and fist bumps given to the winners, Yugo found himself in a brief, warm bubble.

He was...surrounded by people, he thought. No, more than that. He was a  _ part _ of the group. Of...of this family. He felt a warm buzz in his stomach, the adrenaline of the win, his hands still shaking a bit as they gripped the box of chocolates. Rin nudged him with her shoulder.

“Good play there,” she said, eyes glittering.

He felt something in his chest, something like the skip of a heartbeat, as for a moment, their eyes locked. His mouth dried, and the warmth seemed to seep into him, become a part of him — and he realized he didn’t want this breath of a moment to end.

Then Rin’s gazed faltered, and she swallowed, suddenly blushing and looking away from him.

“I guess you’ll have to share that with Selena when she wakes up,” she said, quickly stepping back. “Your prize, I mean.”

The awkwardness crept back in, and the fuzzy feeling in Yugo’s chest sort of evaporated. He blushed, and stepped back too. He remembered that he wasn’t a real part of this family, after all, and he couldn’t let himself forget that. If he let himself believe it for too long...

“Yeah,” he said, “I guess I’ll have to.”


	5. The Day After

Rin popped a chocolate into her mouth, letting it sit on her tongue and melt for a few moments before she bit down. She grimaced. Ugh. This one had a cherry filling.

She was rinsing the last of the flavor from her mouth when the floor creaked under the weight of her father stumbling groggily into the room. He went straight for the pot of coffee she’d already gotten started, filling his mug. She turned and leaned against the counter as she reached for her own mug, sliding the box of her hard-earned prize chocolates from last night behind her. She sure as heck wasn’t sharing.

“Morning,” her father said, flopping into the nearest chair at the kitchen table. “You’re up early.”

“I’m up at my usual time,” she pointed out, taking a small sip of her coffee. Still too hot. “You’re just not used to it.”

“It has been a few weeks since you went down to check on the other school.”

He blinked a few times, clearly trying to get the sleep from his eyes as he cupped his hands around the steaming mug.

“How does it look down there?” he asked. “Running well?”

“Well enough. Definitely going to have to hire a few more people soon. They’re getting more and more interest.”

“Mm,” her father said. He lifted the mug to his face to let the steam waft over him. “And what do you think?”

Rin pretended not to know what he was talking about.

“About what?” She took another, longer sip of her coffee, despite it being hot enough to burn the tip of her tongue, so she wouldn’t have to arrange her face quite as much.

“You’ve been helping me out here teaching for a while,” he said. “But we’re starting to branch out! We’re going to need to start putting more of the family out into the branches. Are you feeling taking a head teacher position down there? Or do you think you’d like to keep looking at other locations? Maybe even take over for me, here?”

Rin tipped the coffee towards her face, pretending to drink this time without further injuring her throbbing tongue — with the mug in front of her face, maybe he wouldn’t be able to see her expression. Or maybe he was tired enough to throw him off.

“Well, maybe we should talk about it more when Yuzu and Ruri are up,” she said. “I mean, it’s up to them, too.”

“Sure, sure,” her father said, though he didn’t seem to be fully alert yet, so she wasn’t sure if he’d really processed what she’d said.

“I’m...going to go in the garage for a bit,” she said. “I’ll come back up to the school to help clean up, later.”

She slipped out of the kitchen before he could stop her, heading for her boots and then out into the garage. It was cold, cold enough for her breath to ghost between her lips and mix with the coffee steam. She set her mug on the workbench, rolled up her sleeves, and turned to the only vehicle in the garage. With the family growing at the Sakaki house pretty much every day, Yoko’s bike now sat in the Hiragi garage to make room. It was old, but Yoko was never going to get rid of it — and she didn’t care if Rin messed with it here and there.

Rin ran both hands over the sides of the casing, tracing the edges of the spray job she’d done before she had to leave for that trip. Yuzu had been the one who was supposed to check on the branch school, but she’d gotten some extra work at college, so Rin had had to step in, leaving her project behind. She sat down on the cold concrete floor, reaching for her spray can and shaking it. Her plan was to repaint the casing a bright white, and add some mint-green wind patterns and a gradient. It wasn’t bad for her first try...and she’d gotten some books on how the insides worked, too, and different custom builds you could do to alter your bike.

_ This _ was what she wanted to do. The school...it was great, and she had a lot of fond memories going to acting classes, doing tech work, helping her dad and sisters teach. But she had to admit, at least to herself, that she didn’t want to be tied to it forever. She wanted to  _ make _ something. Do something that was just hers.

_ Maybe that was why Selena left _ , she thought treacherously.  _ Selfish. _

With Selena gone, and Ray taking regular office work after she’d gotten married, the Hiragi girls were starting to edge away from the school. Yuzu and Ruri still seemed totally into it, but...Rin still felt guilty every time she thought about telling her father she didn’t  _ want _ to be a head teacher at a branch school. Selena leaving had crushed him enough. How could she leave, too?

She sighed, putting down her spray can. She suddenly wasn’t feeling it.

Staring at the bike, though, and thinking about it again...it made her think of Yugo. She’d been trying  _ not _ to think about him — the mysteriously, conveniently appearing fiance. When she’d first heard about him, she’d thought it had to be some kind of scam. Someone taking advantage of her family’s tragedy to get something out of it. Still...something about him seemed too  _ honest _ . It was disorienting. She didn’t know what to think.

She frowned, thinking about it again. Last night, hanging out with him...well, she may have let her guard down. Maybe a little too much. Something about him had...

She shook her head quickly. No. She couldn’t let her guard down again. Yugo was — he definitely  _ wasn’t _ Selena’s type. Rin had known her sister for  _ years _ . She didn’t even think...well, she didn’t even think Selena liked  _ boys _ , much less emotional, heart-on-their-sleeve type personalities like Yugo. Something had to be up. Maybe she should do a little digging.

That was the reason she was standing up, and heading out to find out where this mysterious Yugo lived. That was definitely the  _ only  _ reason.

* * *

Yugo sighed, slinging his vest from his shoulders and tucking it under his arm. Man, but he was  _ tired _ . He’d been out way too late last night...but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. All night it had just been so warm, and light, and everyone had really just...well, they’d all accepted him, and been so nice! Shuzo and Manato had even gotten him a Christmas present, even though it must have been so last minute. He still got a funny tickle in his belly every time he looked down at the scarf wrapped around him. It was so soft and warm. He couldn’t remember being so cozy in the token booth.

He headed up the stairs out of the station, and headed for his favorite food truck. He could smell it as soon as he was out of the station, warm and fresh takoyaki with his name on it. There was already a small line when he got there, so he slipped into the back and reached for his phone just for something to fiddle with.

“Oh, heya. What a coincidence, seeing you here.”

Yugo’s head snapped up, recognizing the voice in an instead.

“Oh!” he said. “Crow-san...where did you come from?”

Crow raised a hand in greeting, his smile stretching the tattoos on his face.

“Just call me Crow,” he said, sticking his hand back into his jacket pocket. “And I was just out for a walk, is all.”

He glanced at the truck.

“Food any good here?”

“The best!” Yugo said, grinning.

“Great. Mind if I stand with you and grab a bite?”

“N-not at all! Um...I could treat you, if you wanted!”

Crow started to protest, then patted his inside pocket and blushed faintly.

“That would be great of you,” he said sheepishly. “Looks like I left my wallet.”

Yugo smiled — more excited than he wanted to admit about getting to treat someone. He never had anyone around to offer it to — and after everything this family had done for him so far, it felt good to be able to give a little something back.

Once they had their little paper dishes of warm takoyaki in hand, Yugo led the way to his usual bench. He stabbed a takoyaki and blew on it to cool it as Crow took up a spot beside him.

“You off of work for the day?”

“Yeah. Only part-time right now, so I only work the morning shift. And holidays.”

Crow nodded. He popped a takoyaki into his mouth and for a moment, they chewed in silence.

“So, what are your plans for the rest of the day, then?” Crow asked.

“Mmph,” Yugo said through a mouthful of takoyaki. He thumped his chest to help it go down, then cleared his throat. “Um; the hospital gave me Selena’s bag and stuff after her accident. I figured I should...I don’t know, take it to over to you guys, maybe? Or take it back to her apartment. I was gonna visit her again later today, too.”

He blushed, then, realizing that not only was he babbling, but he was talking about Selena and this family like he actually did belong to it. It was so easy to keep forgetting that none of this was real, that it couldn’t last.

“I mean! One way or another, I figured I should ask you what you think I should do with it, and...”

He stopped talking, hyperaware of how close he was to talking himself into a corner.

“I — thank you again for yesterday,” he said. “I had a lot of fun, and it was really nice of you guys to invite me.”

“You’re part of the family now,” Crow said, smiling. “That’s what we do. You’re welcome over at any of our places any time. Most of us are in that same neighborhood, so always feel free to stop by.”

“Um, thank you,” Yugo said. “I mean. That’s really nice of you! But I — I wouldn’t want to intrude or anything.”

_ I’m not  _ really  _ part of your family, anyway,  _ he thought, flushing.  _ Just walking in on them...that wouldn’t be right. _

“I feel like — you guys have been really nice to me, and I’m really grateful,” he said, wondering if he was babbling yet. “I just — I don’t want to be a bother to you guys, so I’m gonna...well, I’ll probably bring Selena’s things over, if that’s okay, but I don’t want to...”

_ I don’t want to get any more into your guys’ lives before I have to leave them again _ , he thought miserably.  _ I just want to...diasppear. _

For a moment, Crow didn’t say anything. His head tilted back and he was staring up at the white, cloudy sky. For what felt like ages, neither of them spoke. Yugo was trying to figure out what he should say next. Suddenly, he was anxious again. He needed to come up with an excuse, something that would make sense, for why he would give them Selena’s things and then quietly disappear from their lives. He  _ had _ to. He couldn’t keep this up much longer, and he couldn’t bear hurting them the longer he kept it to himself.

Crow sighed, then, so suddenly that Yugo jumped. His head fell to his chest, and he ran a hand through his hair.

“Yugo, listen,” Crow said. “It’s okay. I...I already knew.”

For a second, Yugo didn’t understand. Then he felt all the blood drain out of his face. The takoyaki lurched in his stomach, and he was inches away from leaping off the bench and either bolting or falling straight to the ground, never to get up again.

“Yugo! Hey, calm down,” Crow said, putting up a hand soothingly. He put his empty takoyaki dish on the bench beside him. “Listen. I’m not upset. I overheard you in the hospital that first night.”

“Oh my god,” Yugo moaned, covering his face in his hands. “I — I’m so stupid. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have — I’ll tell them the truth —”

“Will you listen for a second, kid?” Crow said, exasperated. He knocked Yugo lightly on the head with his knuckles. “Listen. Look at me. Do I look like I’m about to call the cops on you? Prosecute at you for infiltrating our family?”

Yugo peeked through his fingers. Crow’s face...certainly  _ looked _ calm and kind.

“But I lied,” he said, the words sounding lame even to himself.

“You got caught up in a misunderstanding, more like,” Crow said, throwing one arm back over the bench. “I told you. I heard you that night. And it’s not like any of us gave you much of a chance to clear the air then.”

Yugo groaned, dropping his face into his hands again. His fingers were starting to get red from the cold.

“I — I have to tell them, though, right?” he said. “I can’t just keep...”

Crow’s hand lighted on his shoulder. He flinched at first, but it was a gentle, soothing touch.

“Listen,” he said. “Selena’s probably going to be asleep for a while — and I’m going to be honest with you. The family hasn’t been quite right since she left. Having you around...I think it makes them feel like they’ve got her back. I think telling them the truth right now would be too much for a lot of them.”

Yugo peeked up again, trying to judge Crow’s expression. He wasn’t sure, really — but Crow  _ looked _ like he meant it.

“I asked you last night what you thought about the family,” Crow said. “I don’t think you’re a bad kid, Yugo. I think you need us as much as they need you right now.”

Yugo felt, suddenly, like he was going to cry. He quickly rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands, trying to play the sniffle off as a runny nose from the cold.

“Do you want to disappear on us?” Crow asked.

Yugo sniffled again, this time much more clearly a crying sniffle.

“N-no,” he said. “I...when I met you guys...I’ve never _ had _ a family before.”

Crow’s hand squeezed Yugo’s shoulder, and Yugo tried to swallow down the lump in his throat.

“But — but what about when Selena wakes up?” Yugo said. “I’m not actually engaged to her!! She’s not going to know who I am! And I can’t lie forever!”

“Listen, you let me take care of that,” Crow said, clapping him on the back. “Just — I don’t think I’m ready to let you disappear on us just yet.”

He winked, and stood up from the bench to throw away his takoyaki dish.

“Now, why don’t I walk back with you to your apartment,” he said. “I think you said something about getting Selena’s things back to her place?”

Crow started to mosey off, and Yugo, for a moment, could only stare. His eyes bubbled with tears again, trying to process all that had just happened. He rubbed them away, and tossed his takoyaki dish into the trash can, scrambling to follow after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! It's been a bit since I've updated this, but I'm still here, chipping away at it! I'm expecting this one to go to about ten chapters, and I thank you all for your patience!
> 
> Mostly, though, I wanted to throw a note on here to say a very heartfelt thank you to all of my readers. Things are pretty scary all across the world right now, and I hope and pray that you and your loved ones are safe. I hope that you are able to stay home, and those of you who can't, especially any of you working in essential services, are able to take the necessary precautions, and that you are taking care of yourselves. Lately, my anxiety has been through the roof, and my sense of hopelessness has gotten the better of me more than once. But I don't want to give up, and I don't want anyone else to, either.
> 
> I'm going to keep writing, as much as I can. I'm going to do my best to keep writing and posting and sharing with you guys. I know I can't do much, but if this is all I can do, I want to do the best I can. Thank you for being patient with me when I post irregularly. Thank you for leaving lovely comments on my works. And thank you so much for continuing to soldier on, even in the most terrifying of experiences. I don't know what is going to happen next. But I pray that we can all work together to face this, to bully our governments into doing what's best for all of us, and see each other on the other side of it.
> 
> Stay strong, and stay safe. I love you all and I wish nothing but happiness, health, and safety for you and your loved ones.


	6. Winter Afternoon

Yugo could hardly stop twitching as he led Crow back towards his apartment. Crow  _ knew _ , he’d known the whole time and — despite what Crow had said, Yugo really wanted to just run screaming all the way home, lock himself in his apartment and never come out.

But...he’d said it was okay...that it was okay for him to be a part of their family...and...

Well, he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he’d loved being with everyone. The feeling of having a family...he was almost scared to go back to a life without that. Because despite what Crow said, eventually, it would end. He couldn’t fool himself forever.

His head was full of clattering thoughts, tumbling over themselves over and over again as they rounded the corner and reached Yugo’s building.

“I’m, um, on the fifth floor,” Yugo said. “You don’t have to come up with me if you don’t want to! I’m just going to grab that bag of stuff...”

Genuinely, he didn’t...really  _ want _ Crow to see his place. Not that he hated his home, but...well, it was cheap. And a little run down. And he had to cover up some of the cracks in the walls with old posters, and the carpet was threadbare, and...

He glanced at Crow, and found the other man staring up at Yugo’s apartment building with a curious look on his face. Was it judgmental? Was he judging Yugo for his really run down building? Was he having second thoughts about Yugo’s intentions? Oh, no, did he guess that Yugo was poor as shit and assumed that maybe he was actually a terrible person trying to get into the family for money or something??

Yugo was going to say something, though he wasn’t sure what — something babbling and incoherent, probably to fill in the empty space — when Crow’s eyes dropped back down from the building and caught on something else, and he frowned. Yugo’s words dried up in his throat as he followed Crow’s gaze to see...was that...Rin?

“Rin?” Crow called, raising a hand in greeting. “What are you doing here?”

Rin jumped half a foot in the air — it  _ was _ her. He’d thought he’d recognized her mint green hair underneath that beanie, but from behind, it was hard to tell. She whirled towards Crow with big eyes. Her gaze flicked back and forth between Crow and Yugo severals times, mouth hanging open. Then she shook her head as though to clear it, and frowned, marching over to them,

“What am I doing here? What are  _ you _ doing here?” she demanded.

“Happened to run into Yugo here after he got off his shift,” Crow said, slinging an arm over Yugo’s shoulders and rocking him lightly. “He’s got Selena’s stuff from the hospital and was going to run it back to her place. Said I’d join him.”

“Oh,” Rin said. She looked back and forth between them a few times again.

“That doesn’t answer the question of what you’re doing here,” Crow pointed out.

Rin’s cheeks took on a bit of a pink flush. Was she cold? That jacket didn’t quite look warm enough. She should probably be wearing a scarf.

“I just happened to be out on a walk,” she said. “That’s it.”

“Uh-huuuh,” said Crow. “And you were inspecting Yugo’s apartment building so closely because...?”

There was a strange teasing note to his voice that Yugo couldn’t quite decipher. Rin’s cheeks got even more pink. She really should be wearing a scarf. She was going to catch a cold.

“F-for your information, I didn’t know this was where Yugo lived!” she said. “It was just a coincidence!”

Crow had a very funny looking smile on his face, and then, suddenly, he looked down at Yugo, and then at Rin, with a strange, thoughtful look. A grin stretched his face tattoos, and he patted Yugo on the shoulder lightly.

“You know what, I just remembered I have somewhere to be in like fifteen minutes,” he said. “Don’t have time to come by Selena’s place with ya, Yugo, sorry. Hey, since you’re here, why don’t you go with him, Rin?”

“Huh?” Rin said.

“Oh, no, it’s okay!!” Yugo said quickly. “I mean, it’s not like it’s all that much to carry, I just — I mean, I would hang onto it until she woke up, but there was a — I mean, I should go feed her cat.”

He blushed, fumbling over his words. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know about Selena’s cat, because that would be suspicious! But like, he was only a sort of sure she had one, because there was some cat food in her purse, so she probably had a cat, and it had been a few days so it probably needed to be fed! But if he was her fiance he ought to just  _ know _ she had a cat so he couldn’t say it like he’d just found out.

Rin’s brow furrowed.

“Selena has a cat?” she said.

_ Does she not?? Why does she keep cat food in her purse then??i _

“Um, I think she just got it recently,” Yugo said. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal! You don’t have to come along!”

“No, it’s fine,” Rin said. “I might as well come with you. Haven’t seen Selena’s place before, after all.”

_ Oh nooooooo _ , Yugo thought. He hoped he remembered the address and directions right, because checking those would be suspicious to Rin...and he really hoped there was really a cat there.

“Great! I’ll leave it up to you guys,” Crow said. “Rin, don’t forget we’re having game night tomorrow, like usual. And Yugo, you’re welcome to come by as well. Rin can tell you the details.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Yugo said.

Rin only rolled her eyes. Crow saluted with two fingers, with that same, odd smile on his face, and sauntered off, leaving Yugo alone with an extremely suspicious looking Rin. She was so totally on to him, it was so obvious oh noooo....she was going to expose him and then she was going to be mad and....and it hurt, for some reason, that Rin might not like him.

“Um....well, I...I’ll go up and get it,” he said. “You don’t have to come with me, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s fine, I might as well come up with you,” Rin said.

Oh noooo. Yugo bit his lip, but he couldn’t exactly tell her not to come up without making her even more suspicious. So he just nodded, and unlocked the door downstairs, leading her up the rickety old staircases to his floor.

He let them into his apartment, wincing in anticipation of her inevitable comments on how run down everything was.

She said nothing, though, and when he peeked over his shoulder, she was just looking around — he couldn’t tell if she was judging him or not.

“You live by yourself?” she said.

“Yeah,” Yugo said. “I don’t really know anyone enough to stay with them...”

He hesitated a second longer in the foyer. 

“I’ll just — go get Selena’s bag. I’ll be right back.”

He slipped through the hallway to his room, grabbing the big duffel bag with Selena’s things in it. When he returned to the living room, Rin was looking at some of the pictures on the small end table. She blushed when she heard him return, stepping back.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not trying to...snoop or anything. I just saw all your parts and then I saw these and...”

She waved vaguely at the mess of motorcycle parts he’d left all over the floor. Oh, geez, he hadn’t even remembered what a mess he’d left. He blushed.

“Yeah, I’ve just been fiddling...sorry if it smells weird.”

“No, it’s...kinda nice. Too bad you don’t have a better place for all this stuff.”

She didn’t look quite as suspicious anymore, and in fact she was looking over the pieces with a spark of interest. Her eyes flickered over to the pictures on the table again though.

“Is it okay to ask who that is?” she asked.

She pointed to one of the pictures, and for a moment, Yugo blanked. Why was she asking? Did he have pictures of him and a different girl there somehow that would make her suspicious of him dating someone other than Selena? Or wait, was it suspicious that he didn’t have any pictures of him and Selena? Or...

Then his eyes actually focused on what she was pointing at, and he remembered that he only had two pictures, anyway, and none of them had other girls in them. Rin was pointing to the one of him when he was twelve, standing next to a man with mussed dark hair. They both had grease stains on their cheeks, grinning as they held an old engine between them.

“Oh, that’s Yusei,” he said. “He worked at a garage down the street from my old foster home. I used to help him out with stuff — he taught me most of what I know about building stuff.”

Rin looked the picture over. Her brows drew together when he said ‘foster home’, but she didn’t say anything.

“You look really happy,” she said, after a long beat.

“Yusei was great,” Yugo said, smiling in spite of himself. “He was really patient with me — I was so annoying back then! I got moved to another home a couple months after that picture though, I haven’t seen him since.”

He frowned. He was an adult now...he could probably go back, see if Yusei was still there. But he never had...maybe he was scared that...well, in the end, Yusei wouldn’t want him around anymore? He hadn’t ever let himself think about it.

Rin glanced at the other photo. He hoped she wouldn’t ask about that one: it was the only photo he had of himself as a little kid. He was probably two or three in it, but he wasn’t sure. He was holding hands with a tall, pretty woman — the only photograph of his mom he had. He didn’t even remember her name.

She didn’t ask, her eyes drifting away from it and back to Yugo.

“Well, I guess we should go see this cat,” Rin said, and Yugo once again felt a horrible sense of doom come over him.  _ Pleasseeeee let there be a cat there. _

Yugo double checked the address on Selena’s license as surreptitiously as he could as they went back down the stairs, hoping he knew the best way to get there. It would be really weird if he didn’t know the way to his fiance’s house — thankfully, he was pretty sure he knew the exact apartment building it was. He’d passed it on his way to work sometimes, so he wouldn’t need to take a bus. Wait, that was weird to think about — he’d walked past his crush’s house regularly and never known? When she woke up, there was going to be a hell of a lot of explaining to do.....maybe he’d have to leave town entirely.

He tried not to think about that as he and Rin headed back out into the cold and started down the walk. The silence dragged out awkwardly between them, broken only by the occasional car that rattled past on the street beside them. Should he say something? What kind of conversation could he even start that wouldn’t eventually incriminate him? Oh, why had Crow had to leave??

Rin didn’t seem to know what to say either, thankfully, her hands stuffed in her pockets as she looked resolutely off towards the street at nothing in particular. Everything felt...different, somehow. That night at the Christmas party, hanging out with Rin had felt surprisingly natural. But it was as though the cold and the daylight had put some strange wall in between them now — or maybe it was just Yugo’s guilty conscience.

The walk ended mercifully quickly, at least, as they came out of the older neighborhood and headed towards the more downtown apartment complexes. Rin raised her eyebrows when they walked up to the apartment building, and Yugo wondered if she was as intimidated as he was by just how fancy it looked. Or maybe that was just him — this was a much nicer building than his, at any rate.

It occurred to him that if it was this nice, they might not even let him in, even with Selena’s keys. If he wasn’t a registered visitor, these kinds of places wouldn’t let you in, right?? And then Rin would know, wouldn’t she?

He didn’t have any choice — he’d already hesitated a breath too long and he was sure he was suspicious. He marched towards the doors to the apartment lobby, hoping against hope he could figure it out and pretend like he’d done this before.

He didn’t see a buzzer so he tried the doors, and they were unlocked. He let himself into the lobby, heart hammering as he scanned for an elevator. Selena was on the seventh floor according to her license.

There was a desk with a receptionist leaning her head on her hand, staring at a magazine. Her nametag was splotched with tea stains, so all Yugo could see was the first name Hale. She looked up, looking bored, when Yugo and Rin came in.

“Oh, Selena?” the receptionist said, looking at Rin, and then she squinted. “Oh. Huh. Not Selena?”

“I’m her sister,” Rin said, shooting Yugo a quick look.

“She hasn’t been around recently,” the receptionist said, looking back at her magazine to flip it to the next page. “She okay?”

“She’s — she’s in the hospital,” Yugo said. “Oh but uh, the doctors said she’d be okay! I’m just dropping her stuff off.”

The receptionist looked up again, squinting at Yugo. Oh noooo. He wasn’t going to be recognized, and Rin was going figure it out!

“Um — I’m Yugo,” he said quickly. “Selena’s — fiance.”

The lie felt terrible every time he said it but he could feel Rin’s eyes on him, feel the suspicion boring into him, and right now was not the time he wanted to deal with the truth.

“Oh,” the receptionist said, glancing him up and down, as though trying to place him. “Huh, I thought...nah.”

The woman shook her head, and Yugo’s heart leaped in his chest, wondering what exactly that response meant.

“You already have keys, right? Go on up.”

The receptionist waved at the elevator, and Yugo almost fell over. Wait — that was it? She wasn’t going to check anything? A guest list or his ID or anything? What kind of security was that for such a nice place?

“Um, thank you!” was what he said, hurrying towards the elevator.

At any rate, once he and Rin squeezed in, Rin seemed a bit less...suspicious. Her shoulders had relaxed a bit, and some of the frosty silence from outside seemed to have thawed. The elevator dinged at the sixth floor, and Yugo led the way to the apartment at the end of the hall. Thankfully, the first key he tried worked, and they let themselves in.

Rin let out a low whistle, and Yugo tried very hard not to look surprised — he was supposed to have seen Selena’s apartment already. But  _ wow _ — Selena must be doing really well for herself on her own, because this was  _ nice _ . There were huuuuge windows letting in a lot of light, a nice sized kitchen unlike his own single stovetop, and it smelled like flowers. The furniture was all mismatched and looked second-hand, but the space was way bigger than anything he could afford.

“Selena’s not doing too badly,” Rin said. “I was worried.”

She wandered over to the kitchen, looking at some of the messy handwritten notes attached to the fridge with magnets. Yugo walked over to the counter, swinging Selena’s bag from his shoulder and setting it down. He wondered if he should just hang on to the apartment keys for now...he didn’t know how else she’d be able to get back in afterward. He tucked them into his pocket, along with her ID, just in case. Then he dug in the duffel bag for that can of cat food he’d seen before.

“So where’s the cat?” Rin asked.

“It’s...uh...” Yugo started. He tried to think what would be worse — that there wasn’t a cat and he’d have to come up with another lie, or it had been too many days and the cat was...yeah.

A soft  _ prrppblt _ sound came from behind him, and he turned around. On the carpet behind him sat a prim little gray-blue cat, staring up at him with huge yellow eyes.

“Ah!” he said. “There you are.”

He crouched down and made kissy noises, holding up the can of food. The cat didn’t come closer, but it stared at him, tail swishing softly on the carpet. He supposed he should be glad it didn’t just attack him. Plus, he could see its collar and name tag from here. “Luna” the cat was called — he tucked that information away for later.

“Are you hungry, Luna?” he asked in that sing-song voice you were supposed to use for animals. “I’ll get you some dinner!”

Luna just stared at him, unblinking. 

“Not as good with cats as you are with kids, huh?” Rin said, leaning her elbows on the counter.

“I’m...more of a dog person,” Yugo mumbled as he stood up to go in search of a can opener.

“Honestly, me too,” said Rin. She eyed the cat, and it eyed her back, neither of them looking particularly keen on getting any closer to the other. “It’s a pretty cat, though.”

Rin’s eyes wandered about the apartment as Yugo went about finding the cat’s stuff. At the very least she didn’t seem like she was still testing him, which was good because Yugo definitely had no idea where anything was — and clearly, Selena didn’t either. Every time he opened a drawer, it was full of such a cacophony of things that it was a wonder anything was findable in this house. All of the surfaces were expertly neat and clean, but once you looked in a cabinet it was clear there wasn’t any organization.

“She was bad about this at home, too,” Rin said, finally joining in the search for the can opener and cat dish. “It always  _ looked _ clean on the surface, but as soon as you opened her closet you were  _ buried _ .”

“Is that right?” Yugo said, smiling in spite of himself. It was kind of a cute thing to know about Selena, he thought. For all of her stoic looks, she wasn’t too much tidier than he was.

Rin seemed to think so too, a soft, nostalgic smile on her face as she popped open cabinets.

“Ah, here it is,” she said, waving the can opener. “Let’s get this cat some food and go; I’m feeling weird being in Selena’s place before she invited me over.”

“Yeah,” Yugo agreed, and he hurried to finish up.

He wasn’t sure if there was anything else he needed to do, so he just checked to make sure that the heater was still running fine to keep the cat warm, and that nothing looked like it was going to catch on fire. Hopefully, that would be enough for Selena to come home to when she woke up.

“I’ll come by again tomorrow to feed you,” he told Luna before they headed out.

Luna didn’t blink or meow, just watched them go until the door closed. He hoped she wasn’t too lonely without Selena.

They headed back down the elevator and through the lobby, the receptionist not even looking up as they passed. Once they were back out in the bitingly cold December air, Yugo shoved his hands into his pockets and his face into his scarf, breathing out smoky breaths.

“So, uh,” he said, eyes flickering over to Rin. “What are you...uh, what are you planning on doing now?”

Rin pulled her scarf over her face, cheeks getting a bit red from the cold. It had been real nice and warm in Selena’s apartment despite her not having been there a while, which made it much colder out here. A nice building like this probably had the heater on a timer or something.

“I dunno,” Rin finally said after a long pause, sighing. “To be honest, I didn’t really know what I was planning on doing today. Just got out to clear my head, mostly.”

“Oh, I totally get that,” Yugo said. “Sometimes you just gotta get out and start walking away from all the thoughts in your head.”

Rin glanced at him, and a half smile tugged at her lips.

“You do that a lot?”

Yugo blushed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Kinda,” he said. “I mean — well, you saw my place. It’s better to go out and walk around when you need to think.”

Rin nodded. She lifted her hands to her lips, blowing on her gloves gently and then rubbing them together to warm them up. Yugo shifted from one foot to the other, feeling suddenly very awkward. What should he say? Should he invite Rin to go for a walk for him? He...kind of wanted to. He wanted to get to know her better...but would that be weird? He was supposed to be engaged to her sister. Was it weird to want to get to know your potential sister-in-law? Even if she wasn’t actually ever going to be his sister-in-law.

“Do you...want to talk about anything?” he blurted before he could think better of it. “I mean. About why you needed to go for a walk. It’s okay if you say no. I just thought maybe I should ask, in case you wanted someone to talk to. I mean — um. I’ll shut up.”

He quickly closed his mouth as he realized he was babbling. Rin, however, smiled a little bit more, a faint laugh escaping her.

“You don’t have to be so nervous,” she said. “It’s okay to ask people stuff, you know.”

“Sometimes I really don’t know,” Yugo admitted. “I don’t get a chance to talk to too many people.”

He winced as he realized how bad that sounded. But Rin gave him a strange look, almost measuring, as though she were taking stock of him. She was quiet for a moment, her breaths spiraling into the air.

“Well,” she said. “I’m going to start walking, if you want to walk along.”

Yugo jumped a little.

“Oh, okay!”

Rin gave another strange smile, one that he didn’t really know how to read. Then like she said she would, she started walking. Yugo hurried to follow her.

Rin didn’t really seem to have any particular destination in mind, wandering down the sidewalk with her hands in her pockets. Yugo walked next to her, glancing up at the white sky overhead and then back down to the sidewalk to look for ice, and then up again.

“What about you?” Rin said.

“Huh?”

“What were you going to do today?” asked Rin. “Aside from, you know, dropping off my sister’s stuff and feeding her cat.”

“Oh,” said Yugo. “Not too much. I was going to go visit Selena again, see how she’s doing. Then maybe...read some bike magazines? I want to work on my motorcycle more, but I’m missing parts.”

Parts he couldn’t get until probably the paycheck after next, but he didn’t want to focus too much on his funds. The last thing he wanted was for Rin to start to believe that he was after her family’s money or something. Honestly, it would be an easier story to believe himself than the actual story he’d ended up in.

Rin looked interested, though, her eyes sliding over to his as she walked.

“You said you want to open a bike shop, right?” she said.

“Yeah,” Yugo said, smiling. “Once I can get into a trade school.”

“I should have you come by and look at the one I’ve been modding,” Rin said. “Well, it’s Yoko’s, but she’s letting me paint it. I’ll bet she’d let us take it out.”

“Oh I — I don’t even have a license yet,” Yugo said quickly.

“That’s fine,” Rin said, shrugging. “Yoko tells me all sorts of wild stores about what she did with bikes before she had her license, so she probably wouldn’t care. She’d be ecstatic, actually, having someone else to teach.”

“That’s — that’s nice of her,” Yugo said, blushing.

Rin smiled, looking forward again. They’d come out of the residential area and into a small park. Rin turned down a sidewalk and towards a line of trees and snow covered benches. Yugo followed, crunching through the thin layer of snow that hadn’t been shoveled off this part.

“You said you like customizing bikes, right?” he said. “Painting and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Rin said. “I’d love to learn more about fixing them, but I really like the artistic part of it. Decals, mods, that kind of thing.”

A lightness came into her voice as she talked, a sparkle in her eyes that he’d only seen a few times before.

“There’s just something really cool about it. Anyone can get the same old motorcycle put together in a factory anywhere. But when you put your own spin on it, it becomes unique. It’s something no one else in the world has.”

It was almost like she illuminated from the inside as she talked, lighting up. Her hands came out of her pockets to gesture, and her face shone. Yugo could hardly stop himself from staring, dazzled by how pretty her smile looked. He blushed at his thoughts — what was he thinking!! — but he couldn’t help it, either. It was hard to look away from her, or not to be moved by how excited and happy she looked.

“That’s incredible,” he said. “I’d never even thought about it like that, but you’re right!! You’re making something new all over again!”

Rin seemed to realize she was getting carried away, because then she blushed, stuffing her hands back into her pockets.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “It’s not a big deal.”

“No, that’s really cool!” insisted Yugo. “Is that what you want to do? Customize motorcycles?”

Rin coughed, tucking her face into her scarf.

“It’s...just a hobby,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of time to do it, anyway. The school takes up a lot of time...”

Something deflated in her as she said that, and the light from before seemed to drain away, replaced with a melancholy grayness that seemed to settle over her like a veil. Yugo frowned. Did Rin not like the theater school? Maybe that wasn’t what she wanted to do.

“Do you have to do the school?” he said. “I mean, do you like it? Is that what you want to do?”

“I...it’s complicated,” Rin said. She pushed a hand through her bangs. “My dad needs our help to manage it. It’s a lot of work, and we’re getting a third branch here soon.”

Yugo frowned. Rin seemed even grayer than before, dull and depressed just talking about it.

“But do you  _ have _ to?” he said. “Don’t you get to decide what you want to do with your life?”

Rin looked at him, trailing off to a stop. Yugo stopped too, and they stood there on the sidewalk, staring at each other for a bit.

“I...I can’t just give up on them,” Rin mumbled. She said something else that Yugo didn’t quite catch, but Yugo thought he heard Selena’s name. He took a little step towards her.

“I think, from what little bit I know about your family,” he said. “That they wouldn’t be mad, or upset. I think they’d be happy if they knew you were doing something that made you light up so much.”

Rin’s cheeks reddened, and Yugo wasn’t sure if it was a blush, or from the cold. She tugged her scarf up over her mouth and nose.

“It’s...it’s not that simple,” she said, ducking her head away.

Yugo wanted to say something else. Clearly, motorcycles made her really happy! And she lit up so much just thinking about them! He wanted to convince her that she could do what she wanted. 

But he drew back, realizing then that he was probably overstepping. After all, he and Rin were...well, they weren’t anything. And it was presumptuous of him to even think of her as a friend, with the context of how he’d met her. It wasn’t his place to tell her what she should do, even if he could tell what would make her the happiest.

“Anyway,” Rin said. “It’s not a big deal. I can find time to do my hobbies in between...everything.”

She let out a breath through her scarf, and started walking again.

Her foot caught on a slippery patch, and she squeaked, leg going out from under her. Yugo leaped forward before he could think about it, catching her under the arms. But then he also stepped on the ice, and his feet started to skid back and forth, and he was leaning on her to stay upright as much as she was gripping to him as the pair of them skidded around like deer on ice.

“Ah, careful, watch out, watch — gah!”

Yugo’s foot hit the snowbank behind him, caught, he tumbled backwards. Rin, still clinging to him, yelped as she was yanked forward along with him, landing heavily on top of him. Yugo oofed as he flopped into the snow with Rin landing heavily on top of him. For a moment, he could only lay there, head spinning slightly.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” Rin gasped, flushing as she tried to get up. 

He oofed again when she accidentally elbowed him trying to get up, slipping and sliding when she tried to push onto the sidewalk and instead just fell back down.

“H-hang on, I think if I just —” she said, sounding absolutely mortified.

“You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine,” Yugo said, blushing himself.

Finally, Rin managed to stand, climbing into the snow bank so she wouldn’t fall again, and reached over for Yugo to help him to his feet as well. He took her hand gratefully, letting her help him pull himself free of the snow. Once they were both standing, flushed and panting, they just stared at each other for a moment.

Yugo thought he might have giggled first, but Rin’s lips cracked too, and then they were both giggling so hard that it was hard to breathe the cold winter air.

“I’m so sorry,” Rin said.

“Hey, I’m the one who pulled you over,” he said, gasping between laughs. “Wow, it’s slippery, huh!”

She laughed again, face going red, and he couldn’t stop, either.

They both laughed so hard that neither of them realized that they were still holding each other’s hand.

* * *

Rin let herself into the small, dark hospital room, the clock on the wall reading eleven pm. It was a different one than the first one Selena had been in, now that she was mostly stable. She didn’t have a tube over her face anymore, as it seemed she was pretty much just asleep, and didn’t need any extra help breathing. The IV in her arm broke the illusion that she was just taking a nap, though — as was the peaceful way she laid there. Normally, she was halfway off the bed fifteen minutes after falling asleep.

Rin pulled out the chair near the bed and sank into it. She was glad Yugo wasn’t here. She’d come so late to avoid ending up hanging out with him and Selena. Something about having to be in a room with both of them at the same time felt strangely suffocating.

“Hey,” she said, her voice swallowed up by the silence of the room. “You awake yet? You’re gonna be late for school.”

The joke felt hollow, especially when, of course, Selena didn’t respond. Rin slumped back in her chair, arms slung over the sides. She watched her sister for a long, long moment. Selena looking so peaceful felt wrong. She was supposed to always be grousing about something, or getting mad or competitive.

“I saw your apartment today,” she said. “You should have invited me over before. You have plenty of space. Almost enough to fit the whole family for game night.”

Selena breathed steadily. None of Rin’s words seemed to have any effect on her. She leaned forward, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a deck of playing cards she’d brought along.

“Speaking of, you’re missing it tomorrow,” she said. “Like you missed the last ones. But don’t worry, I brought something along to tide you over.”

She reached over for the tiny side table by the bed and dragged it between them. She dealt the cards out as though they were about to play rummy. They’d always loved playing that game. She and Selena had always gotten into it the most. Ruri had always been bad at her poker face, and Yuzu got annoyed with Rin and Selena’s competitiveness, quitting early on. Rummy had always been her and Selena’s game.

“It really was a nice place you got,” she said. “And I saw some of your dance awards on the shelf. You’re doing well for yourself, huh?”

She turned her cards towards her and laid Selena’s hand face down on the table on her side. She looked at her hand.

“You’ve always done whatever you wanted,” she said. “And you’ve always gotten what you wanted.”

There was a lump in her throat, but she swallowed it down.

“You could have still done dance if you stayed with the school, you know.”

Rin discarded a few cards from her hand and picked up a few more. She tried to focus on her hand instead of the memories. The day she’d come home and found Selena’s side of their room emptied out. No goodbye except for a short note left on her desk saying she had to leave and follow her own dreams, that she’d explain later.

“You never did. Explain, I mean,” Rin said. “Why you left.”

She swallowed.

“You got your dreams, though, huh? Nice place, nice awards, your own path. And...and a nice fiance. Must be nice to get everything you want, huh?”

She stared at her hand. It was a good one. One that could net her a lot of points depending on what Selena had. She looked up at her sister again, but like before, there was no response. A weird, irritated feeling overwhelmed her all of a sudden. It was so unfair. Selena had just left. She hadn’t thought about what anyone else would think. How it would affect anyone else. She’d just gone, without a care in the world, going after what she wanted without thinking about those she left behind. And she’d gotten it all. And more, besides.

How had someone like her sister even ended up with someone like Yugo, anyway? What had drawn her to him? Was it his openness? His optimism? The cute way he babbled when he was nervous? Was it the way he was so overwhelmingly supportive even when he didn’t know you all that well? None of those things seemed like something that would attract Selena, but then again, she and Rin had never talked much about what they wanted from a relationship. They’d never had ‘boy talk’ before. 

“So, hey,” she said, her voice rough with unshed tears. “How about this, huh? Let’s play this hand for Yugo.”

Selena didn’t respond. She just kept breathing, soft and silent. Rin reached over the table and picked up the hand she’d dealt Selena to look at the cards.

She felt her shoulders slump for some strange reason as she noted Selena’s starting hand was already a better point score than her own. She dropped her cards onto the table and sat back in her chair with a sigh.

She was the one being unfair, she realized. None of that all meant shit when her sister was in a coma. And what the heck was she saying, let’s play this hand for Yugo? He wasn’t something you could win off a card game. And geez. What was  _ wrong _ with her? Thinking like that about her comatose sister’s fiance?? Selena would be so angry with her.

Rin slid forward and dropped her head in her hands.

“Wake up,” she whispered. “Please...wake up.”

Selena’s breaths came soft and steady. But she did not wake up.


	7. New Year's Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahaa....so uh..... -looks at the last updated date- ahaaahaaaa....time sure flies, huh??
> 
> It's been a pretty....uh. It's been a year. -gestures vaguely at 2020-. I always intended for this story to be done LAST year, but here we are in another December, and it turns out it's going to take a year to write a story that was supposed to be a month.
> 
> I'd like to thank all the readers for your _incredible_ patience, and I promise you that this story WILL be over this year. Only approx. 3 chapters remain in my outline, so....I hope I can manage it this time! Thank you to all of my readers, for your patience, your kind words, and for just being around to read and enjoy my stuff! I hope you and your loved ones are well and safe, and I'm sending you all my best holiday wishes. Let's hope the next year will be a kinder one.

Did you need to bring a house gift to a New Year’s gathering? Yugo didn’t know. He’d spent last New Year’s huddled in his apartment over a bowl of instant ramen because he hadn’t been able to make soba after getting home so late from work, hoping that his rumbling heater stayed on all night while his old TV played Kohaku in the background. He’d been working so much he hadn’t even had time to do a deep cleaning of his apartment until New Year’s Day.

He’d decided to play it safe and bring some of that nice detergent he liked as a house gift. It was only polite, right, since this was the first time he was coming to the Hiragis actual house? He told himself that over and over as he hovered outside the house, biting his lip and trying to work up the courage to knock.

He didn’t have to, because the door flew open just as his knuckles were about to tap the door.

“Yugo!” Shuzo cried. “I’m so glad you could make it! We were starting to worry about the snow!”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Yugo said. “I got caught up at the convenience store, and uh — oh! I brought this!”

He thrust the bag with the detergent towards Shuzo, and Shuzo blinked. Then he smiled, laughing as he clapped Yugo on the shoulder.

“Now see, he has manners!” he said. “Shun, you should learn from Yugo! Get your blood really boiling!”

Just inside the door, Yugo heard a scoff that must be Shun responding. He blushed, but Shuzo took the bag and stepped back so that Yugo could come in.

“Sorry for the intrusion,” he said.

“Nonsense! We invited you,” Shuzo said. “Come in, come in! You can help the girls with the mochi!”

“Please!” Ruri called from down the hall. “I’m afraid I’m going to ruin it!”

Yugo smiled tentatively as he slipped out of his shoes, and followed Shuzo down the hall. It was a pretty small house, so he could understand why they used the school for their big gatherings. He could hardly imagine fitting the whole Hiragi family in here, much less their extended ones. Still...it had a nice, warm, cozy feel, and it smelled fresh, like someone was burning incense. It was a lived in place that wasn’t falling apart.

There were photos hanging on the wall in the hallway, and he had to resist stopping to look at them. He did catch a glimpse of the four sisters as kids, and they all looked so alike when they were younger! They were all so cute. So that’s what Rin looked like when she was young.

He blushed as he realized what he had just thought. Gah! Why was he thinking about Rin?? He at least could think about Selena! His crush! And his fake fiance!

He shook off the thoughts as Shuzo led the way into the kitchen. It was small and homey here, too, and there were lovely smells floating all around. Bright yellow light washed the room in a warm, welcoming glow, illuminating the women bustling about. Manato turned around first, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Look what Yugo brought us,” Shuzo said, showing off the detergent as though it were some trophy he was proud of.

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, dear!” Manato said with a smile. “And we were just running low!”

“Ah, I had good timing then,” Yugo said, blushing a little.

Manato plucked the detergent from Shuzo’s hands and swept back around to the sink.

“Hi, Yugo!” Yuzu said, waving from the counter. Her hair was back in a ponytail, and she had flour smudged on her cheek. “Are you any good at making mochi?”

“Mom decided we had to make it from scratch this year,” Rin grumbled, pinching a small piece off of a big mound of dough. Yugo couldn’t help but stare at her hands, in awe in spite of himself of the deft way she rolled it and then pinched it dexterously, freeing the little mochi without getting sticky.

“Oh, um,” he said, realizing he’d been asked a question. “I’ve never tried before? I always get mine from the convenience store.”

“Well, maybe you can do a little better than me at the kneading,” Ruri said, wiping her face and smudging rice flour all over her cheek.

“I told you,” Shun’s voice floated from the room next to the kitchen. “If you were going to make them from scratch, get a stand mixer.”

“That defeats the purpose!” Manato said.

“Hey! No helping, no opinion,” Yuzu said, pointing into the living room with her spoon.

Yugo couldn’t help but smile at how easily they all talked with each other. Was this what it felt like to live with people, just normally, or was it only like this during some kind of celebration?

“Hey, if you want to help, come put some anko paste in these,” Rin called to Yugo.

“Oh, sure!”

He hurried over, standing next to her at the counter. She’d already put a line of rolled mochi balls on a baking sheet there — though, with how small the kitchen was, he had to stand so squished close to her that their hips were nearly touching. He hoped he wasn’t so red that they could see it — was he making her uncomfortable at all??

“You know how to do it?” Rin asked.

“Huh? Oh, uh...no, sorry,” Yugo said.

“No problem, it’s not hard,” Rin said. “Watch.”

She reached over him, her shoulder brushing his, and he felt like he was going to heat the entire kitchen. What was  _ wrong _ with him?? He needed to — to not let his thoughts be wandering where they were wandering!

Rin pushed one of the mochi balls flat with the heel of her palm.

“You just squish ‘em down like this,” she said. “Then dust off as much of the starch as you can, and just scoop a little anko paste in the middle. You can just pinch it over the top then, like a rice ball, and reshape it.”

Yugo nodded, trying to focus on the mochi and not on Rin being so close to him.

“Sure, I can do that,” he said.

He flattened one of the mochi, and reached for the bowl of anko, scooping a bit out into the middle. He tried to pinch the mochi up over it, and then push it back into a ball shape the way he’d seen Rin make the original balls. The dough stuck to his fingers, though, and he was starting to pull it apart as he tried to shape it. The anko poked out in a few places, and nearly squeezed out as tried to reroll it.

“Oh, oops,” Rin said. “I made you skip a step. Here.”

She reached for the sad looking mochi ball and plucked it from his fingers, setting it aside.

“You’ve gotta dust your hands with some starch or it’ll stick,” she said. “Here, give me your hands.”

She took his wrist, and sprinkled some potato starch onto his palm. Yugo nearly short circuited. Was it just his imagination, or did her hands linger on his for a little too long? Was it just his stupid brain, or was he disappointed when she let go?

She coughed, and he wasn’t sure if he was only imagining the sudden blush across her cheeks or not.

“Uh, there,” she said. “You shouldn’t have any trouble now.”

“Uh, thanks,” Yugo said, blushing.

They stood in silence for a few moments, Rin rolling mochi while Yugo flattened them and plopped anko paste inside. From the living room behind them, Shun turned on the television, and variety show music filled in the spaces between the others’ chatter.

“And I  _ told _ Masumi that putting  _ real  _ jewels on the costume dress was way too expensive, and  _ silly _ besides, but she was so insistent that it would look better under the lights than faux jewels,” Yuzu said, gesturing with her spoon. Yugo hadn’t heard how this conversation had started, because he’d been too focused on Rin-being-very-close, but he tried to tune in now.

“Oh dear, please tell me you aren’t breaking up again,” Ruri said, looking over her shoulder at Yuzu.

“No, not over something so silly,” Yuzu said. “And oh my god, Ruri, that was  _ once _ , and we were just on a break.”

“Not to interrupt, but have anyone seen Reiji?” Manato asked. “He didn’t leave, did he? I told him he and Reira could stay the night.”

“Where else do you think he is? Next door,” Shun said. “Probably making out with his boyfriend.”

“Don’t be crass,” Rin said, rolling her eyes. “I’d be  _ shocked _ if they’d done more than hold hands, still blushing, at this point.”

Ruri snorted, the breath of her laugh sending up a little cloud of starch from the dough she was kneading, and she sneezed into her elbow.

“I think Reira’s taking a nap upstairs,” Ruri said, rubbing at her watering eyes.

“I’m just surprised Yoko-san hasn’t been over yet,” Yuzu said with a soft laugh. “She’s normally bursting in here more than once all night.”

“I think she said something about fireworks,” Shuzo said, looking a bit concerned. “I hope she’s not planning on setting off anything big — ”

A loud boom rang out from the house next door, and Yugo jumped, dropping the mochi he was working on. Rin swore as she fell into him briefly in her surprise.

“Oh my god, she’s insane,” Shun said, groaning. “She’s going to get the fire department called on us. Again.”

Rin righted herself, and this time, Yugo was sure of it. She was blushing. He blushed, too, and tried to focus on the mochi.

“Um, does Yoko-san do this a lot?” he asked, more for something to distract himself than anything else.

“Alllll the time,” Ruri said with a laugh. “She loves being a bother.”

“She nearly set our house on fire last summer,” Shun grumbled.

Rin let out a snort.

“No,  _ you _ almost set our house on fire,” she said. “Don’t point fireworks  _ at _ the house.”

“I was moving it away! Yoko set off her big one right behind me and it made me jump!”

Yugo’s lips cracked in a smile, a strange feeling of relaxation coming over him. He felt...comfortable, he realized. He felt like he was a part of the conversation, a part of this family, even. That was a dangerous thought, he thought to himself. But he couldn’t help it. It was so easy to slip into the idea that this was normal, that it was okay for him to be here. Even the warmth in his cheeks from being next to Rin felt...nice, in a way he couldn’t quite understand.

“You’ll have to join us for fireworks next summer,” Rin said. “We were thinking of going to the beach this time.”

“That sounds like fun! I haven’t been to the beach since high school,” Yugo said.

“Oh yeah? You go for a school trip?”

Yugo smiled as he rolled another mochi. He was getting better at it — the line of filled mochi slowly started from misshapen to near perfectly round as he looked down the row.

“Nah, I actually skipped a school day,” he admitted. “I was having a rough time that semester, so I skipped, and just took my usual train all the way to the last stop and got off. Spent the rest of the day on the beach there.”

“Ooh, a rebel,” Yuzu said. “I can see why Selena likes you!”

A weird feeling rose up in his chest, and some of the comfort he’d felt before receded as he remembered, once again, the lie he was tangled up in. He wanted...he wanted so badly for this to all be real. But...but it couldn’t be, could it?

“All right, that’s enough mochi for me!” Rin said, throwing up her hands. “This is more than enough to feed a small army, mom.”

“Well, that’s what the Sakaki family  _ is _ , so I wanted there to be enough,” Manato said. “But — oh, Reira, dear, are you all right?”

Yugo turned around, and Rin copied. The small child he’d seen at the Christmas party was peeking around the corner to the kitchen, only one eye visible, staring at everyone. Their fingers tightened on the doorframe as they seemed to notice they were being watched.

“Did the firework wake you up?” Yuzu asked.

Reira only nodded silently.

“You okay, squirt?” Rin asked.

Reira pressed their lips together, but didn’t say anything. They looked so nervous...

“Want a mochi?” Yugo said impulsively, holding up one of the ones he’d made. “Eating always makes me feel better.”

Reira stared for a long, almost uncomfortable moment. Yugo was starting to almost regret asking. Then, finally, Reira nodded again. They didn’t move from the door frame, though. Yugo waited a second. Then he took the mochi, and walked towards them. He saw their fingers tighten on the doorframe, so he stopped a little bit away, holding it out, like they were a nervous cat he was trying to coax out of the corner. Reira considered it for a moment, and then considered him. Slowly, then, they snaked their arm around the doorframe and took the mochi from Yugo’s outstretched hand. As quick as a blink, they disappeared around the corner again.

Yugo dusted off his hands on his jeans, smearing potato starch on them.

“You did good,” Rin said, as Yugo walked back over to her. “Reira’s a little skittish.”

“Are they okay?” he asked, glancing behind him at where Reira had disappeared.

“Just a little spooked by the loud noise, I think,” Rin said. “They’ve always been off and on nonverbal. And...well, we’re not really sure why Reiji decided to walk out with them from his parents’ house all of a sudden. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and hey, I’m not going to ask.”

She frowned, clearly thinking about some worst-case scenario that only she could think of. Yugo felt so sad thinking about what might have made a kid feel so nervous and quiet all the time. His own childhood hadn’t always been the best, shuffled from one foster home to another but...at the very least, most people hadn’t been outwardly cruel to him.

“One way or another, though, they’re my little sibling,” she said. “So thanks, for being so considerate of them. I know people can think they’re a little weird, not talking and all.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Yugo said. “They didn’t have to talk to let me know what they wanted, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal.”

Rin looked at him, tilting her head. A strange look passed over her eyes, one that Yugo didn’t know how to read. Then a small smile graced her lips, and she looked away.

“Well, anyway,” she said. “I’m so done with mochi. Wanna go shove Shun off the couch and watch some Kohaku for a minute?”

“Oh, uh, sure!”

“Don’t go away for good!” Manato said, shaking her finger at them. “We have to make the soba next!”

“Yes  _ mom _ ,” Rin said, rolling her eyes.

Yugo followed Rin into the living room, which was just across from the kitchen. Shun had sprawled out over the couch, seemingly only half looking at the screen while he kept checking his phone, one earbud still in.

He swore when Rin sat right on top of him.

“Rin!” he snapped, trying to smack at her but being at the wrong angle for it. “Dammit, Rin —”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, I thought you were the couch,” Rin said with a mischievous little smile.

“I  _ will _ kick your ass,” Shun grumbled.

She got off of him so that he could sit up, making room on the couch, still grumbling. Rin shot Yugo a wink, and Yugo couldn’t help but let out a little giggle.

“Don’t  _ you  _ get started,” Shun said, shooting Yugo another glowering look that immediately made Yugo duck his head.

“And don’t you be a rude host,” Rin said, pushing Shun’s head.

Yugo hovered for a moment, awkward and unsure of where to go. There was still room on the couch, but...he’d be  _ real _ close to Rin, and it felt like choosing to sit there instead of somewhere else would be weird, especially because of literally all of the reasons why it would be weird.

Before his standing there became too weird, he just quickly sat down on one of the nearby armchairs, perching on the very edge of it. Was it his imagination, or did Rin look briefly disappointed? No, he was imagining it, he was projecting — gah! Why was he projecting? Stupid, stupid Yugo...

Rin reached for the remote control and turned up the volume. Yugo didn’t know the band that was playing on Kohaku right now, but he focused on it anyway, more for an excuse to stop letting his thoughts run away from him.

It was a lost cause. All he could think about was how close Rin had been back in the kitchen, and the soft way she’d looked at him after he’d given the mochi to Reira. He kept thinking about how it’d felt when she’d fallen against him, and the warmth that had exploded through him at the way their bodies had briefly been pushed up against each other. The way her eyes had lit up while she was talking about motorcycles, how bright she’d looked thinking about a future she wasn’t sure she could have.

“Oh, oops, sorry, Yugo-kun, can you move over there a minute?” Ruri said. “I need to move some things around here before Yoko’s family starts piling in and we all get squished.”

Yugo leaped out of the chair, face flushed with his thoughts.

“Ah!! Sorry!” he said. “Do you want any help?”

“You’re fine, you’re fine!” Ruri said with a laugh and a wave of her hand. “I’ve got it. Go ahead and sit down for a moment, we invited you over and immediately put you to work!”

“I don’t mind,” he mumbled, but Ruri just laughed and shook her head, beginning to push the armchair over.

Yugo stood awkwardly in the middle of the living room for a second, and then Shuzo bustled in, moving some of the other furniture around, so the only place he could go to get out of the way was...on the couch, next to Rin.

“Don’t worry,” Rin said, patting the spot next to her. “They have their own ideas of where things are going, anyway, so it’s best to stay out of their way.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” Yugo said.

He sat gingerly, the couch shifting him towards her a bit, as a heat rushed through him that he wished he could control. Everyone had to notice, right? They had to notice that he was acting like this. They’d all be confused, because he was engaged to Selena, and he was acting like he was in love with — 

...ah, Yugo thought, as his brain briefly shorted out. That...that was what had happened, wasn’t it?

He was in love with Hiragi Rin.

Rin sighed, throwing her arm over the back of the couch, and he was suddenly so hyperaware of every motion she made, the way her chest rose with her breath, the flicker of her eyes at the television — he could hardly breathe, as though he were trying not to disturb the sudden glass-like feeling around him, as though the world might shatter if he moved. 

_ I like her _ , he thought, pressing his hands hard into his knees, still perched on the very edge of the couch.  _ I like her, so much, it’s not just a daydream about a person I’ve never talked to, it’s — it’s a person I  _ know _. It’s someone I  _ like _ because I like being with her and I want to be with her all the time and I —  _

_ And I can’t... _

His throat seized up. Was he about to start crying, right here in the middle of everything? In the middle of this warm, cozy family who had made him feel like he’d come home, who made him feel like he belonged — in front of the girl he was in love with? The girl he had no right to love? He couldn’t breathe.

The doorbell rang, and Yugo flinched so hard that he nearly fell off the couch.

“Whoa! You good there?”

Rin snatched his elbow to steady him, and it was like an electrical surge up his body. It paralyzed his tongue and he couldn’t say anything, could barely even think. Was he imagining the way — was he just  _ wishing  _ that he saw — the light pink that came to her cheeks and the way she quickly released his elbow?

“Now who could that be?” Manato said, dusting her hands off on her apron as she headed for the door. 

“Yoko wouldn’t ring the doorbell,” Yuzu agreed.

Yugo tried to breathe. Breathe!  _ Remember why you’re here, remember who you’re supposed to be! _

_ Remember what you’re not allowed to have! _

He managed to get his heart rate back to normal, coughing once to hide the nerves etched in every crevice of his being. At the door, he heard Manato greeting someone, and then the loud voice of Sora from next door.

“I’m here for otoshidama!” he announced.

“Aren’t you a little old for that?” Shun said.

“Not yet!”

Yugo and Rin both turned, almost as an excuse to do something than look at each other, towards where Sora, red-faced from the cold, hopped after Manato as he unwound his scarf. 

“Oooh, mochi!”

“Who said you could have one of those?” Shun said, grabbing Sora’s arm before he could snatch one.

“I did,” Sora said, grabbing one with his other, free hand, and stuffing it in his mouth before Shun could stop him.

“Hey, you didn’t help make them, so you don’t get a say,” Yuzu said, tapping Shun on the shoulder with her spoon. “Get in here and make some soba.”

Shun rolled his eyes, but after glowering at Sora, he let him go and followed Yuzu into the kitchen. Sora crossed his eyes at his back, and stuffed another mochi in his mouth. He grabbed two more and then danced back from the kitchen. His eyes fell on Rin and Yugo on the couch, and he grinned.

“Oh, it’s you!” he said, flopping his arms over the back of the couch. “Happy New Year, Selena’s fiance.”

It stung, a little, and Yugo swallowed it back before he could cough again.

“Hi to you too,” he said.

“He’s got a name, Sora,” Rin said, an edge to her voice.

“Well I don’t remember it yet,” said Sora. He popped a mochi into his mouth and chewed noisily. Yugo grimaced, looking away so he wouldn’t have to see him chewing with his mouth open. “How’d you guys meet, anyway?”

“Um, at my job,” Yugo said, the words coming out a little woodenly. “She comes through my station.”

“Oooh,” Sora said. He licked the starch off his fingers. “I just think it’s kinda weird. I mean, isn’t Selena, like, a lesbian?”

H-huh? Yugo blinked at him.

“Sora,” Rin said, warningly. 

“What?” Sora said. “I’m just saying what everybody’s been thinking.”

“Selena never said she was or wasn’t,” Rin said. “And now’s not the time to talk about things like that — Selena’s choices were hers, and she’s, right now —”

A pained expression came over her face, and her throat seemed to choke off. Even Sora looked a little chagrined.

“Sorry,” he said, half to Yugo and half to Rin. “Um....mochi?”

He held his last mochi up between them, and they stared at it. Yugo looked up at Rin, and Rin at Yugo. Then she smiled, shaking her head.

“It’s fine, Sora,” she said. “You eat it.”

“Cool.”

He threw it into the air and caught it in his mouth, then pushed off the couch and scurried off, possibly embarrassed.

“Don’t mind him,” Rin said. “He doesn’t always know where the line is.”

“No, it’s fine,” Yugo said, though it definitely, definitely wasn’t. It made his stomach twist, thinking about all of the lies he was sitting on, the tangled mess of hurts that he was piling up one more after the other. 

Rin seemed quiet for a moment, her eyes on the TV screen. Was it just him, or did she seem as distant as he felt? Was she upset, too? Well, that made sense — she’d had to think about her sister being in a coma again. HIs hands tightened on his knees.

“You know, I — ” Rin started. She stopped, and her brow furrowed, as though she were trying to figure out how to say it. “I think...I think Selena made a really good choice.”

Yugo jerked his head up towards her, staring.

“Huh?”

“I just — Selena picked a good guy,” she said. “However she was figuring herself out, I mean — I think she ended up with a really good person, and I...I’m glad.”

If she was glad, why did she sound so...sad? And why did the words not make him feel any better — why did they make him just feel so  _ melancholy _ ?

“Well, I...I really hope that she — that she finds her way back to you guys when she wakes up,” he said. “Because...because she’s got a really good family behind her, and I really hope that she — she knows that.”

His chest was so tight. He felt so  _ upset _ . But he meant it. When Selena woke up, when he inevitably had to walk away — he hoped she came home. That whatever had caused her to leave them behind, she’d go back. That she’d be able to sit in this warm, cozy home again.

Rin turned to him. Her eyes were so soft. There was something sad, something resigned in her expression. But she smiled, and it was the softest thing he’d ever seen.

“I hope so too,” she said, soft. “And I’m glad, Yugo, that you’re going to be a part of it now, too.”

He felt like his stomach was going to twist in on itself. He swallowed before he could start crying.

“Hang on, whose phone is ringing?” Manato called through the kitchen. “I hear a buzzing!”

“Mom, that’s yours,” Yuzu said.

“Oh.”

Yugo looked down at his knees. He tried to breathe. He tried...to let go. Let go of his wishes — his wish to be a part of this family. His wish to be in love with Rin. One at a time, he tried to release them, to let go of them. It was the only way, he thought. He couldn’t have anything else.

From the kitchen, a crack sounded. Rin and Yugo whirled in their seats.

Manato stood stock still in the kitchen. Her phone laid on the ground where she’d dropped it, hand still held to her ear.

“Oh,” she gasped, eyes wide.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Ruri asked.

“Honey? Everything okay?” Shuzo said.

Manato took in a deep, shaky breath. When she looked up, her eyes were full of tears.

“She’s awake.”


	8. Awakening

Yugo’s heart thrummed in his chest. He had the distinct sense of what it was like to be a rabbit and wanting desperately to bolt, but knowing that any sudden movement would catch the attention of the fox. Squished in between Ruri and Rin, he bounced along in the Hiiragi family vehicle as Manato scolded Shuzo for speeding and Shuzo gripped the wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white.

The phone call had sent the family into chaos. There were people fumbling around in the kitchen, trying to make sure the stove was shut off, coats getting thrown on, Sora bolting over to the house next door and sharing the news and then the Sakaki family pouring in through the doors, demanding to know what was going on — the chaos of people trying to figure out who was going to go to the hospital, how many seats were available in the car, how many people the hospital would even let in right now.

Somehow, in the chaos, Yugo had ended up stuffed into a backseat with the sisters. Yuzu was on the phone, talking so quickly that Yugo couldn’t make out what she was saying. Ruri had her hands clasped together under her chin like she was praying. Beside him, Rin gripped her knees, her fingers digging into the fabric of her pants legs. There was a strange, stony look on her face, whether it was from shell shock or something else, Yugo didn’t know. Despite the good news, there was a thrum of anxiety in the car. Yugo thought he could understand it — Selena was awake, but how would she be doing? Would she have taken any serious long term damage from her fall and coma? Would she still be the same person?

And all the while, as the street lights flashed by the car in a glowing blur, he was watching the brief, shiny few days of happiness starting to slowly wilt in front of him. 

Once they were there, once they faced Selena — that would be it. They’d find out what had happened. They’d realize he’d been lying to them, all this time. They’d be horrified — angry. That he would do something like this while they were vulnerable...god, now that the end of it was in his sight, he felt sick. How could he have let this go on for so long? How could he have led them all on like this? How could he have taken advantage of their kindness? He was going to throw up.

He wrapped an arm around his stomach and tried to breathe.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” Ruri said gently, taking Yugo’s hand and squeezing.

He tried to smile at her, but it was so, so hard. He didn’t deserve to be comforted. He didn’t deserve to be here in this big, happy family...

The car shrieked to a stop and the passengers all lurched forward against their seatbelts before snapping back. Shun was already opening the door before Shuzo had even turned the car off, climbing out and turning around to push the seat down so that the back seat passengers could get out.

Manato spilled out of the car, and then Yugo climbed out after Ruri and Yuzu, with Rin on his heels. Yugo turned around automatically to grab Rin’s hands, to help her down from the car, and she automatically grabbed him back. Their eyes met for a brief second, and Yugo felt a horrible, melancholy feeling wash over him. Rin’s eyes flickered away as quickly as they’d met his, and she tucked her hands back away from him. Somehow, it felt like a gulf had already opened up between them, even before the truth was out, and Yugo felt it like a stab to the gut.

Still, maybe it was better this way, he thought, leaning away from her. He should get this over with — like a bandaid ripped off.

Manato scurried to the doors ahead of everyone while Shuzo finished parking the car, and the sisters followed. When the doors slid open, Crow was already just inside. He must have been one of the ones called during the commotion, and he’d gotten here first.

“Crow! Have you seen her yet?” Manato asked, gasping.

“No, they wouldn’t let me in — immediate family has to sign off,” Crow said, hugging her. “But they said she’s okay; once you got here they’d let you up.”

Manato gasped out a thank you and rushed in. Yuzu and Ruri hurried after their mother, and then Rin. Yugo hesitated, glancing at Crow. He was somehow relieved to see him. After all, he was the only one who knew the truth. He must know how Yugo was feeling right now, and what was about to happen. Crow met his gaze, and after a beat, grimaced.

“Hey,” he said, gripping Yugo’s shoulder. “Listen. It’s gonna work out fine.”

“I should have told them earlier,” Yugo mumbled, running his hands down his face. “I should have told them!”

“Listen, it’ll be fine,” he said. “Come on, let’s just go in, okay? I’ll back you up.”

Yugo shot him a pleading look.

“Why are you doing this for me?” he said.

Crow squeezed his shoulder.

“Cause I like you, kid,” he said. “Now come on. Let’s see how this goes.”

He slung an arm around Yugo’s shoulders and pushed him inside. Yugo felt like he might barf. It was too long after Christmas for a Christmas miracle, wasn’t it?

* * *

Rin hated herself. 

She squeezed her hands into fists and released them. In and out. In and out. Her stomach was a roil.

Selena was awake. Awake! That should have been great news! She should have been ecstatic! And of course she  _ was _ ! She was glad her sister was okay! That even after her accident, even after such a long time asleep, it sounded like she was going to be totally okay. Of course she was glad!

But at the same time — ugh! She was the  _ worst _ ! Why was it, that after the initial burst of relief, her first thought had been — 

She kneaded her fists into her eyes as she waited for the elevator to finish rumbling up to its floor. 

_ You suck _ , she told herself.  _ Stop thinking about... _

Stop thinking about Yugo’s hip pressed up against hers. Stop thinking about his big goofy smile. Stop thinking about how the first thing she felt when she heard  _ she’s awake _ was a spurt of disappointment!

_ Oh my god I really am the worst, _ Rin thought.  _ Just — breathe!! _

She sucked in a breath, and let it out. Okay. Okay. She could do this. She  _ was _ happy to finally get to see her sister, awake and okay, after all of this time. So happy she thought she was going to cry. And...and Yugo was her sister’s fiance. She was going to be okay with that. She was going to congratulate her. She was going to put space back between them again, she was going to stop talking about things she couldn’t have. She was going to give up, and she was going to move on.

Steeling herself as the elevator reached its destination, she straightened her shoulders. She marched out after her parents scrambling along down the hallway, following the nurse to Selena’s room.

_ Focus on Selena _ , Rin ordered herself.  _ Focus on your sister _ .

Her parents and sisters were the first through the door, Shun catching it and holding it open for Rin. She slipped in. Her parents were already clustered around the bed on one side, and Ruri and Yuzu on the other.

“Oh my god, you guys,” came the soft, muffled voice of Selena from the bed. “I just woke up and you’re already fussing...gimme five more minutes.”

“Selena, don’t you dare go back to sleep, you big dummy!” Yuzu said.

Rin swallowed as she edged forward, poking her head through the gaps between the cluster, trying to get a glimpse of her sister.

She was still rumpled, her hair loose, still in hospital scrubs, still a little too pale. But for the first time in weeks, Rin could finally see her eyes again. She looked a little unfocused, but that was her sister. Her sister was awake. All of Rin’s horrible rush of feelings melted under a sudden, overwhelming stream of relief. Her knees buckled, and she pressed a hand over her mouth before she could sob aloud. Her mother was doing enough of that for all of them.

It was only hitting Rin now that she’d started to think Selena might never wake up. That Rin might never see her again after all — that she’d never get to hear why she had left them, that she’d be left with this sense of growing heartache at the loss of the sister she’d always been closest to. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment to force the tears back.

“I really don’t remember what happened,” Selena mumbled, as their mother clung to her hand and sobbed. “Where  _ am _ I...? What are you all doing here...?”

She squinted up at them, her eyes moving from one person to the next. Rin’s mother was babbling, and Shuzo talked at the same time as Ruri, all three of them stumbling over each other’s words trying to explain to her — accident, train tracks, coma, Christmas already over, thought you wouldn’t wake up, hospital — 

And then Selena’s eyes hesitated on a face. Her lips turned down, and her brow furrowed ever so slightly. For a moment, she just stared, clearly only half listening to the words pouring over her. What caught her attention? Rin frowned herself, and tried to follow Selena’s gaze. Who was she looking at...?

Rin’s eyes landed on Yugo, just as Selena opened her mouth and said in the clearest voice since she woke up,

“Who are  _ you _ ?”

* * *

Yugo had really  _ tried _ to disappear in the commotion of it all. He figured that he could make the show of being here, and then — no matter what Crow said, he couldn’t stay, he knew he couldn’t. He’d been a bother enough, and during this most important moment in this family’s life, he couldn’t ruin it. He couldn’t break the moment, couldn’t hurt this family anymore than he already was. He’d slip out in the commotion and he’d disappear, somehow. They knew where he lived but — well, he’d figure it out! He just couldn’t bear to see their faces when — 

“Who are  _ you _ ?”

Selena’s bright, emerald eyes locked right onto him — those beautiful eyes, a gaze he’d first fallen in love with, that even now make his heart skip a beat. He froze. His heart was a lump of ice sealing off his throat. He couldn’t breathe. 

Oh no. Oh no. It was happening. It was finally happening. He tried to cough through the lump in his throat. But what could he say? What can he do? It was all going to come out right now, and he was going to make Selena’s waking up even  _ more _ confusing for her, and her family is going to hate him, and this day that should have been happy for them is going to be  _ ruined _ — 

He struggled, fumbling, trying to come up with something to say. Some way to soften the whole thing — for them, and for him. He could feel all of their eyes on him already, and he felt like he was melting, shrinking, he wished he’d never been  _ born _ — 

“Oh my god,” Manato gasps, her eyes wide. “Selena...do you have  _ amnesia _ ?”

Yugo blinked. Selena blinked. Everyone seemed to hold their breath. Slowly, Selena turned her head towards her mother.

“Do I have  _ what _ ?” she said.

“You don’t remember Yugo?” Ruri said.

“Yugo? Who’s Yugo?”

“Your fiance?” Yuzu said, looking wide-eyed and shocked. “You don’t remember your fiance?”

“My...my  _ what _ ?”

A brief look of panic sparked over Selena’s eyes. She darted her gaze back to Yugo, and then to her sisters, her parents, and back to Yugo again. Her eyes widen, and Yugo felt like he was going to throw up. This was all his fault!! He was doing this to her!

“Oh no,” Yuzu says, putting a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no, Sel...”

Did they — were they actually buying it? Yugo darted his eyes around the ground, and all of them look...stricken, and sad, and...they were totally buying it. His mouth hung open, trying to pick up the pieces of his shattered brain. He shot a desperate look at Crow, and Crow stared back at him, eyes wide. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. No? No what? No don’t say anything? Yugo didn’t think he could if he wanted to.

“Oh, Sel, don’t worry,” Ruri said, grabbing hold of her other hand. “Don’t push yourself, okay? Let things come back naturally. You took a really bad hit to the head.”

Selena stared at her, and then at her mother, and then at everyone else. Her eyes fell on Yugo again, and Yugo wished he could sink through the floor.

“My...fiance?” she said again, like she was speaking a foreign language.

_ Oh my god,  _ Yugo thought.  _ I am SUCH a fuck up. _


End file.
